The media industry was expecting March Madness. What it got was absolute chaos. Just a week ago, two of the top executives in TV sports were talking up the NCAA’s annual men’s basketball tournament, one of the nation’s favorite sports events and an economic juggernaut.
Broadcasts of the March Madness games by CBS Sports and Turner Sports in 2019 generated a whopping $910 million in advertising, according to Kantar, a tracker of ad spending.
Advertising slots for the 2020 games had sold out, according to Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports. Both McManus and Jeff Zucker, chairman of WarnerMedia’s news and sports operations, knew viewers across the U.S.
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