March Madness Extends Into November

At Northwestern State, advertising is not measured in millions of households or millions of dollars, it is measured in hundreds or thousands of dollars and thousands of households.

And yet, in advertising and television circles, you hear about the millions of households watching a given program, ratings and shares. None of that has really meant anything to NSU…until now.

With Jermaine Wallace’s shot as THE defining play of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, everyone around the athletic department at NSU knew that the benefits would be impressive. The $107,000 to the general scholarship fund. The countless mentions, front page stories and even the domination of the “One Shining Moment” highlight montage at the end of the tournament.

But surely the good pub will stop there.

It has not.

CBS has begun airing a promo for its NCAA Tournament coverage. Who gets mentioned? Of course George Mason, the Cinderella of all Cinderellas that made it to the Final Four. The Florida Gators? Of course, they won the national championship. The only other team very noticeably included in the highlight?

The Northwestern State Demons with Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery’s call of “Oh my goodness, Northwestern wins!”

The Demons are in that commercial at least three times (Tyronn Mitchell jumping, the Demons jumping on the sideline, a sideline shot of Mike McConathy clapping with the team celebrating the comeback behind him).

The reason I began this story talking about ratings? Because the CBS NCAA promo was running during the NFL coverage on CBS. The NFL is a runaway juggernaut of ratings, with almost every sports fan in America watching. So the fact that the promo runs during that time means that tens of millions of people see NSU again.

No longer can the NSU athletic department talk about buying a billboard in Natchitoches or putting a radio spot on the local airwaves without realizing that with one stirring comeback and one miracle shot, anything they can pay for would be dwarfed by something they didn’t have to buy.

And as anyone in advertising will tell you, the more people who see you the better, the lower the price the better.

Being able to advertise to millions of people for free? Priceless.