Last week, when Butler’s Gordon Hayward’s half-court heave at the buzzer rimmed off and crowned Duke champion of the 2010 Men’s NCAA Tournament, it marked the end to two incredible weeks…of live streaming.  NCAA March Madness On Demand, offered free of charge for online viewers, was once again a slam dunk for CBS Sports. 

Some of the numbers:

• 11.7 million hours of live streaming video (up 36% from last year) were consumed by 8.3 million unique visitors (up 10% from last year). 
• 575,000 unique visitors (up 70% from last year) watched the tournament’s final game and consumed 368,000 hours of live streaming video (up 72% from last year).
• The “Boss Button,” which disguises basketball-watching by instantly pulling up a spreadsheet, was clicked 3.94 million times, up 42% from last year.

What does this all mean?  The popularity of live streaming of sports online continues its rapid ascension.  One would think a Duke/Butler final, with 99% of the world long eliminated from their office pools (myself included!), would not draw nearly the number of viewers as the North Carolina/Michigan State final from a year ago, let alone 70% more!

Careful, CBS…you probably cost yourself in the TV ratings of the tournament games, right?  Nope. March Madness On Demand is “all additive, not cannibalistic,” emphasized CBSSports.com general manager Jason Kint.  The TV ratings were up 5% from last year and CBS sold out its online advertising inventory for the tournament well before it started, bringing in $37 million in online ad sales.  One clever move was that though the user could switch between games being played simultaneously, this was only an option during live action.  When a timeout was called and the game switched to an advertisement, the user was locked into the ad and had to wait until play resumed to check out coverage of another game.

The streaming quality itself was steadily improved from last year.  MMOD employed adaptive bit rate streaming this year, something Elemental knows very well.  Soon, you won’t be able to find a quality live streaming experience that doesn’t take advantage of adaptive bit rate streaming technology.  It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan that can't get enough.

Only 337 days until the 2011 NCAA Tournament!  While the outcome of the NCAA Tournament may have lost significance for me when Kentucky went down, the game-tracking definitely did not.  My eyes were still glued to the television screen...and the computer monitor...and the mobile device...!

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