It’s the start of March Madness and college basketball enthusiasts around the country are rejoicing.
Although picking the perfect March Madness bracket is nearly impossible, millions of people complete the legendary ritual each year and tune into the live games. The famous NCAA tournament draws in die-hard fans and bandwagon supporters alike.
And what would March Madness be without brands getting in on the hype? Last year, almost all of the ad spots during the men and women’s tournaments were quickly picked up, with total ad spend on the men’s tournament alone breaking away above $1 billion.
The impressive investments mean the stakes are high. So, which March Madness marketing strategies will go all the way? We looked to past tournaments to make our strategy predictions, and turned to Sprout Social’s Influencer Marketing platform to find out where the best partnership opportunities lie.
Let’s dive into the results and a few tips to help your brand stay in the game.
The March Madness marketing opportunity
Last year, the men’s March Madness championship game drew an average of 14.7 million viewers. The women’s championship attracted an even larger crowd, with an average of 18.7 million viewers. With tens of millions of people tuning in, it’s clear that March Madness is a major cultural moment.
And not just for typical fans, or sports and fitness-adjacent brands. Between the play-by-plays, trending commentary and student-athelete influencers on social media, March Madness has more impact on the zeitgeist than ever before.
Zooming out, social has helped transform many sporting events into a lucrative marketing opportunity for brands of all kinds—from food and beverage to fashion houses to insurance companies.
As more brands hustle to make the most of March Madness, stand-out campaigns will feature student-athlete influencer partnerships, incorporate online cultural touchstones and address a growing female audience that has been historically under-engaged.
4 March Madness marketing ideas (with campaign examples)
With a massive event like March Madness, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. To craft scroll-stopping campaigns, you need to tap into online culture. Doing so will enable you to partner with the right influencers, forge brand alliances your audiences will love and find ways to set trends instead of just reacting to them.
Here are a few tangible ways to get in on the action, and examples from 2024 to inspire your strategy.
Collaborate with unexpected brands
As brands across industries experiment with March Madness marketing campaigns, more unexpected partnerships have emerged. Often, newcomers to the tournament (and, sometimes, sports marketing in general) will partner with established athletic brands to increase their relevancy and credibility. These partnerships also benefit sport and fitness brands by helping them reach new audiences.
Take the Home Depot’s corporate sponsorship of the NCAA. While the home improvement retailer does have a storied history with college athletics, their brand isn’t necessarily the first most people associate with March Madness. To promote their sponsorship last year, the brand crafted a content series called “Tips from the Tool Shaq” featuring legendary basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. The series tied together basketball themes with spring DIY home projects—a match made in social media niche heaven.
Why it works: Even if your brand doesn’t have an obvious connection to the tournament, partnerships and sponsorships can help insert your brand into the discourse. Not every brand has the budget to be an NCAA corporate sponsor, of course. But you can look for partnerships with other sports brands instead—from CPG brands to clothing retailers to college and professional teams. The best crossovers happen when you tie different aspects of online culture together.
Create an IRL moment
While social spurs on March Madness hype, the best way to experience the tournament is in real life. IRL brand activations also fuel a pipeline of user-generated content, increasing brand awareness on social and extending the lifespan of your campaign. Even if you aren’t actually on-site at the tournament, you can still find ways to foster community.
Take Marriott Bonvoy, the official hotel partner of the NCAA. Last year, they offered their loyalty program members a chance to win tickets to the Women’s Final Four. The grand prize included flights, hotel accommodations, courtside seats, and a game day ritual session with former Texas A&M player and current Texas women’s basketball coach Sydney Carter. They also created a hub on their site where guests can plan their March Madness travel experiences—from booking a hotel to buying tickets.
Why it works: Enriching fans’ March Madness experience is the name of the game. When brands succeed at making the event more fun and memorable, they win loyal fans of their own. Travel and hospitality brands can shine especially bright during the tournament—just be sure to avoid trademark infringement and ambush marketing in your content.
Put your own spin on a bracket challenge
Filling out a bracket is a signature part of the March Madness experience. But the official NCAA bracket isn’t the only one fans obsess over. Brands and social users create bracket faceoffs of their own, where romance novels, sweet treats and even memes compete for the top spot. These unofficial brackets are the perfect way to engage people who want to be part of the cultural significance of March Madness, but don’t know a lot about basketball.
On the other hand, some brands can find ways to layer their brand into the official bracket. In Buffalo Wild Wings’ Shorty Award-nominated campaign, the casual dining restaurant crafted a gameshow called “Beat the Buffalo.” The show let fans go head-to-head to pit their brackets against Jack—a real, live buffalo.
As Buffalo Wild Wings said, “We trained a real, majestic buffalo to select NCAA basketball winners, and then challenged fans to beat his picks. Many did, some didn’t and everyone had their minds blown. It’s an innovative take on the familiar March Madness bracket competition, where contestants enter their picks against a fellow competitor to see who is right, who is wrong and who is a buffalo.”
Why it works: Buffalo Wild Wings took a well-established March Madness custom, and found a way to make it fresh and brand-forward. The stand-out campaign resulted in hundreds of thousands of views and media pickups. When outlining your tournament marketing, consider how you can rewrite the rules of the traditional bracket.
Tap into a new marketplace of influencers
A historic Supreme Court decision in 2021 allowed collegiate athletes to get paid for their name, image and likeness for the first time. In the past few years, a multimillion dollar-industry has emerged. Student-athletes began partnering with everyone from local college town restaurants to major brands like Nike. During March Madness, brands take these partnerships to the next level.
Last year during the tournament, Raising Cane’s brought back their “Underdog Challenge” campaign. The restaurant chain famous for their chicken tenders partnered with student-athletes from “underdog teams”—aka, the teams picked to lose their matchups. Whenever an underdog won, Raising Cane’s gave away free combos. As NC State’s DJ Burns put it, “When the odds get beaten, the chicken fingers get eaten, baby!”
Why it works: We mentioned the free chicken, right? In addition to a delicious giveaway, the campaign also speaks to a favorite March Madness pastime: cheering for the underdog. By partnering with the student-athletes fans already know and love, Raising Cane’s is getting ahead of the pandemonium that will follow an underdog win—tying their brand to the team early.
When seeking out your own partners, remember they don’t have to be from the top seeded team or an MVP to make an impact. In the next section, we explain how to find the right student-athlete partners.
Top college athlete influencers for March Madness marketing (and beyond)
There are more than 520,000 NCAA student athletes. This record-breaking figure explains why the influencer marketing opportunity for brands is at an all-time high in the wake of the NIL ruling.
To help narrow down this massive pool and find the right partners for your brand, turn to a solution like Influencer Marketing.
To demonstrate how it works, we created a Signals Report in the platform to identify the top college athlete profiles by earned media value (EMV) that have posted about or are affiliated with the NCAA and March Madness since November 2024. Here’s who we found.
Jada Brown
Jada Brown is a basketball player at Vanderbilt University. With over 3 million followers across platforms, Brown has amassed an impressive and loyal following. Her engagement rate is 43%, and her growth rate is in the top 1% on both Instagram and TikTok.
According to Influencer Marketing data, 80% of Brown’s audience is Gen Z and Millennials, with an even split across genders. In the past, she’s shouted out brands including Coach, Bloom Nutrition and Student Beans in her content.
The EMV of Brown’s posts equals around $2.12 million.
Brandon Dwyer
Brandon Dwyer is a basketball player at Florida Gulf Coast University. The Eagles guard boasts over 4.4 million followers across social platforms, and is in the top 50% of growing accounts on Instagram and YouTube, and in the top 20% on TikTok.
In his content, the player has mentioned brands like Hoopers, Sunny D and Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and has a reported EMV of $167K. Almost 80% of his audience are Gen Z or Millennials, while 62% are male.
Dominique Darius
Dominique Darius is a basketball player at The University of Southern California, and has amassed 178K followers across networks. Darius is in the top 5% of creators on TikTok and in the top 1% on Snapchat. Her impressive engagement rate (23%) confirms how much her growing audience loves her.
In previous posts, Darius has mentioned brands like La Victoria, GLD and WSLAM. The Trojan guard’s posts have an EMV of $79K, and her audience is primarily made up of Gen Z and Millennials and leans slightly male.
Mary Lengemann
Mary Lengemann is an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University basketball player. The Eagles forward/guard has around 140K total followers, and an engagement rate of 15.4%.
In her social posts, Lengemann has mentioned brands like Nike, Under Armour and Girlfriend Collective, and has an EMV of over $40K. Nearly 80% of her followers are Gen Z and Millennials, and a slight majority are female.
Jackson Young
Jackson Young is a basketball player at Southern Methodist University. The Mustang guard has around 348K followers across platforms, with a follower base that is 80% female (the largest gender divide on our list) and primarily made up of Gen Z and Millennials.
Young has previously mentioned brands like Raising Cane’s, Optimum Nutrition and Burberry in his content. He currently has an EMV of $23K.
How your brand can pull off a social media upset
March Madness isn’t just a basketball tournament—it’s a cultural phenomenon that presents massive opportunities for brands.
Whether through unexpected brand collaborations, immersive IRL experiences, unique bracket challenges or student-athlete influencer partnerships, the key to success lies in tapping into online culture and meeting audiences where they already are.
As brands continue to raise the stakes each year, those that embrace authenticity and innovation will stand out from the crowd. With the right strategies and partnerships, your brand can turn March Madness into one shining marketing moment. Now’s the time to get in the game.
Looking for more instruction on finding the best student-athlete influencers? Read our guide to finding the right influencers for your campaign.
The post March Madness marketing: How elite brands can score major points appeared first on Sprout Social.
