Executive Round Up: What Makes March Madness the Spectacle It is Today?
We asked executives in our industry what makes March Madness the spectacle it is today. Here’s what they had to say.
Kevin Grigsby
Executive Producer/SVP of TV
FanDuel TV
Fans love to root for upsets and underdogs and March Madness tells those stories better than anyone in sports. The unpredictability provides FanDuel TV a unique opportunity to drive viewership as we see a huge increase in College Basketball interest from our viewers. To service our viewers, who are often also FanDuel Sportsbook bettors, we are updating our on-screen scrawl with schedules, lines and live scores on in-play markets in real time and airing regular appearances with college basketball experts like Jon Rothstein on “Up & Adams” and “Run It Back.”
Hania Poole
SVP, Digital and Product
Warner Bros. Discovery Sports
There are very few national events existing today that can command the attention, capture the imagination, and own the conversation across the nation as much as March Madness. It’s a perfect formula, mixing sports—which consistently break through the clutter—the immediacy of a one-and-done game with potential for Cinderella stories, and a condensed timeline, that creates a special moment in time. We are seeing this first-hand on our March Madness Live streaming platform, which has experienced record numbers for engagement and time spent this year with the average user spending more than two hours watching games across devices.
