March is finally here, which means college basketball to most American sports fans. The NCAA March Madness Men's College Basketball Tournament is upon us and sport bars across america could not be more crowed. This Basketball tournament has been around since 1939 and since then it has grown to become one of America's most watch television series of all time, just coming short of the super bowl. This tournament is not limited to just one day though. The games will continue for 3 weeks until the National Championship on April 6th. With so many viewers watching these games, companies around the globe pay networks that broadcast the games such as CBS, millions of dollars just for 30 second commercials. It is calculated that just for a 30 second ad to be shown on one of the games it would cost about half a million dollars. For a final four game it would cost about one million dollars and for the national championship it would cost about one and a half million dollars. Over the past two years it is said that advertisement spending has increased 66% in just the past two years. Everything is marketed from the Capital One pre-game show all the down to the Werner latter the winning team uses to cut down the net after winning. 

This year it is estimated that over 1.3 billion dollars will be generated from the advertisements over the course of the 3 week tournament. Companies are willing pay all this money because they see the value in the viewership with these games. On social media alone 1.5 billion conversations include corporate partners that are affiliated with the NCAA tournament throughout the three weeks. Companies such as Capital One and AT&T will create there own social media campaign to drawn in the media posts. They offer numerous prices when using certain hash tags or when you sign up for a credit card and use it at certain restaurants such as Buffalo Wild Wings. Buffalo Wild Wings is the official Bar sponsor of the NCAA tournament and has created a new line of commercials which feature popular comedians just for the 2015 tournament. All companies who have time slots in the tournament create new and appealing commercials to catch the millions of viewers attention.    

Big businesses are not the only ones making deals during March Madness. Small local sport bars all across the nation see a higher amount of customers during the tournament. Many will offer deals with beers, or half off when wearing a college team shirt, and so on and so on. Many bars even go as far as giving away free big screen televisions to people. Sports are becoming the leading area where companies are now spending their money. Americas seem to be easily swayed during sports and companies are taking full advantage with over a billion dollars pumped into this 2015 tournament.

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