NCAA March Madness Live, having just completed the third round of the 2014 tournament, has already eclipsed the number of video streams from last year’s entire event, setting a consumption record for the platform.
Through the first week of the 2014 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, NCAA March Madness Live has recorded 51 million video streams across computers, smartphones and tablets, topping the 49 million for last year’s complete tournament, according to data from Omniture and Conviva. Gauged against the similar stage of the 2013 competition, NCAA March Madness Live, which is managed by Turner Sports, was up 40%. Last year marked the first in which customers of TBS, TNT and truTV had to verify their pay TV subscriptions to access live streaming simulcasts of the ballgames. The simulcasts of the games that air on CBS do not require a pay-TV subscription.
Additionally, NCAA March Madness Live has netted more than 10.5 million hours of live video consumed, an increase of 6% over last year, putting it on pace to rank as an all-time record.
The results build on the 2014 tourney’s fast streaming start that saw NCAA March Madness Live register 21 million live streams and 4 million hours of video consumption from March 18-20
Mobile platforms -- tablets and smartphones -- tallied a 74% jump in live streams from March 18-23 over the first week of the tournament in 2013. Live streaming hours also delivered considerable growth, up 39% over the corresponding span last year, according to Omniture and Conviva research.
The top five most-watched games across digital platforms over the first three days of the tournament, based on live video streams, were: Dayton-Ohio State: 4.59 million; Mercer-Duke: 4.22 million; Harvard-Cincinnati: 2.74 million; Kentucky-Wichita State: 1.99 million; and Stanford-New Mexico: 1.45 million.
All of those contests – save for the Cardinal-Lobos matchup – surpassed the most-streamed game from the 2013: the 1.84 million for Michigan State-Valparaiso.
In partnership between the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports, NCAA March Madness Live is launched from www.ncaa.com/marchmadness, www.bleacherreport.com and www.cbssports.com, and is available via the Amazon Appstore, Apple App Store, Google Play and Windows Store. Additionally, fans can watch games via live streaming on TNT, TBS and truTV’s digital platforms, as well as participating TV provider websites.
