March Madness on-demand traffic up 56 percent

More than 2.7 million unique visitors checked out digital coverage of Thursday's opening round of the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship according to CBSSports.com, which adds that traffic increased 56 percent over last year's first-day total. Perhaps even more notable, CBSSports.com reports that its new NCAA March Madness on Demand iPhone application, which provides sports live streaming tournament video to iPhone and iPod touch devices, topped the paid application rankings in Apple's App Store. While CBSSports.com streams all NCAA tournament games live on the web for free, the iPhone app costs users $4.99 for the initial download--its success suggests there is strong consumer interest in paying for live sports video content on the mobile platform.

CBSSports.com adds that users consumed a combined 2.8 million hours of live streaming March Madness video and audio on Thursday, up 65 percent over 2008 totals. CBS notes that hundreds of web and mobile properties signed up to participate in the NCAA March Madness on Demand Developer Platform, offering sports fans a host of new sites to watch games online--partners include CBS Interactive properties such as TV.com, CNET.com, Last.fm and GameSpot.com as well as sports and media websites including ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports, SI.com and USAToday.com. The NCAA Tournament tips off again this Thursday with the Sweet 16 round.

For more on March Madness digital traffic:
- read this release

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