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Over the past ten years March has been a time of year that college sports fans look forward to for many months prior.   Division One NCAA basketball players will be leaving everything on the floor to get a chance at the tournament, fans will tune in to see who will succeed and who will get upset, and Fortune 500 companies put forth enormous amounts of money to have their name associated with the tournament.   This 19-day event has been named March Madness, and has become one of the largest sporting events in the world.   This is an event where the athletes participating, have dreamed about for their entire life, fans will make small bets with friends or co-workers, and companies dream of being associated with.   Companies like CBS, General Motors, and AT&T have invested billions of dollars to make this event as big as possible.  
For the Sports Marketing business, March Madness is a goldmine.   This collegiate basketball tournament that is broadcasted for about 65 hours courtesy of CBS, competes with the Super Bowl and Summer Olympics for the amount of revenue generated.   March Madness is an event that extends to a variety of people and marketing niches which is why is has become such a valued opportunity for marketers.   For many of the companies that will advertise or sponsor the tournament, the focal point will be the commercials being aired, and the prices are outrageous, having an all inclusive license fee of about $530 million. (Lemke)   A graph has been provided below that shows the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament Network TV Advertising amounts being spent from 1998 to 2007.
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Total
Spend ($ million) 239.1 270.0 319.2 318.2 358.0 379.9 450.6 475.1 500.2 519.6 3,829.90
# of Advtsrs 81 83 75 113 125 95 99 92 104 126 288
* Includes pre-game, game and post-game programming
Source: TNS Media Intelligence

Companies such as CBS, General Motors, and AT&T have concluded that this NCAA Men’s...