Basketball’s big year for brands

It’s been a big year for basketball in the US, between the men’s and women’s USA Basketball teams’ Olympic golds, a massive March Madness, a riveting NBA Finals (for Boston Celtics fans, at least), and rapid growth in the WNBA leading up to the finals.

Brands have been scoring big from the sport this year, too, according to a new report from measurement company EDO.

Across the NBA, WNBA, and NCAA, more than 1,000 brands spent an estimated $2.1 billion to air more than 100,000 ads, EDO found, and those ads averaged higher engagement rates and delivered a bigger impact than other broadcast and cable prime-time programming.

The NBA Finals was the best-performing basketball event for advertisers, per the report, and brands are also winning in the women’s game, with several women’s basketball events proving more effective this year than last.

Big ballers: Impressions, ad impact, and engagement rates were largely up across the board for basketball on TV this year, and the NBA Finals were the most effective of the bunch, according to the report. EDO defines effectiveness as how likely an ad is to motivate consumers to engage with a brand online.

Of this year’s men’s basketball events:

• Ads that ran during the NBA Finals were 86% more effective than ads that ran during the average broadcast or cable prime-time program, meaning that commercials running against the NBA Finals were 86% more likely to engage consumers.
• Ads that ran during the NCAA men’s basketball championship game were 64% more effective than the prime-time average.
• Ads that ran during the NBA playoffs, excluding the finals, were 39% more effective than the average prime-time ad.
• Ads that ran during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, excluding the championship game, were 26% more effective than the prime-time average.
• Ads that ran during the NBA regular season were 12% more effective than the prime-time average.

With the Celtics defeating the Dallas Mavericks in five games of a best-of-seven-game series, this year’s NBA Finals were “relatively uncompetitive,” and ad engagement took a dip year over year, but the regular season and playoffs were more effective compared to last year, EDO found.

Of the brands showing up in the league, New Balance and Denny’s were among the most effective, while Gatorade and KFC also had ads that well outperformed the average NBA advertiser, per the report.

Growth spurt: There’s mounting evidence that brands shouldn’t sleep on women’s basketball. EDO also found:

• Ads that aired during the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, excluding the title game, were 44% more effective this year than they were during last year’s event, per the report.
• Ads that aired during women’s NCAA regular season games were 31% more effective than the previous season.
• During just the first two weeks of the 2024 WNBA regular season, viewers were 30% more likely to engage with ads compared to the 2023 regular season.

Claritin, Skims, and Gatorade were among the most effective brands in the first couple of weeks of the W season, EDO found. Opill, an OTC birth-control brand that partnered with the league for the first time this year, had the most effective ad during that time.

Collegiate: Like in the NBA, ad effectiveness during the 2024 Men’s NCAA Tournament final dipped a bit year over year, though engagement for the title game still topped the prime-time average, and also increased year over year during the regular season and the rest of the tournament, according to the report.

On the women’s side of the NCAA, ad effectiveness increased year over year for the third season in a row during the regular season, the tournament, and the final. The title game, in which Kamilla Cardoso and the University of South Carolina defeated Caitlin Clark and the University of Iowa, was 9% more effective for advertisers than the broadcast cable and prime-time average, EDO found.

That finding comes on the heels of a watershed year for the NCAA women’s tournament. The title game, which drew an average of 18.7 million viewers, holds the record for the most-watched women’s basketball game of all time and drew a larger audience than the men’s final for the first time in history.

With Cardoso, Clark, and a roster of other former college stars now in the W, the report indicates that teams including the defending champs at South Carolina, JuJu Watkins and the University of Southern California, and Paige Bueckers and the University of Connecticut could inspire viewership and ad engagement in the coming NCAA season.