NCAA 25 Marketing Strategies: A Comprehensive Guide to Engaging Fans and Driving Sales

March Madness, the annual NCAA Division I basketball tournament, ignites unparalleled excitement, captivating both die-hard fans and casual viewers alike. The single-elimination tournament, featuring 68 teams battling for the national championship, has become a cultural phenomenon and a lucrative opportunity for brands to connect with a passionate audience. The NCAA earns approximately $1 billion annually from March Madness, primarily through TV broadcasting rights, ticket sales, and corporate sponsorships. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the NCAA earned $1.28 billion in total revenue, with about $1 billion of that coming from March Madness alone. This represents nearly 85 percent of the NCAA's annual revenue.

With millions tuning in to watch the games, brands are stepping up their marketing game to capitalize on the tournament's widespread appeal. This article explores a range of NCAA 25 marketing strategies, from leveraging NIL deals and running bracket contests to creating limited-edition merchandise and engaging with fans on social media.

Understanding the March Madness Phenomenon

March Madness is a single-elimination college basketball tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 teams that compete in seven rounds for the national championship. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has three divisions, out of which Division 1 includes all the top universities with the best athletic programs in the nation. The NCAA conducts a yearly all-men's basketball tournament, which is now known as March Madness.

March Madness continues to draw massive audiences, with the 2024 women's final between South Carolina and Iowa drawing a record-breaking 18.9 million viewers. The men's final between UConn and Purdue, while still significant, drew 14.82 million viewers.

The primary sources of this revenue include media rights, merchandise licensing and themed merchandise sales, and ticket sales. Holiday sales reached record levels in 2023, with total sales exceeding $960 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. Given this remarkable figure, March Madness becomes an optimal time for e-commerce businesses with several strategies you can consider for a positive financial impact from March Madness for your online store.

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Why March Madness is a Slam Dunk for Marketing

March Madness offers unparalleled reach and engagement with a passionate fan base, providing brands a unique opportunity to connect with consumers through sports-related promotions and advertising. The buzz around the tournament on social media platforms provides eCommerce brands an opportunity to engage with potential customers through targeted ads, interactive content, and more. Many eCommerce retailers have, in fact, witnessed a spike in traffic from avid sports fans as they engage on social media platforms during the tournament.

Leveraging Partnerships and Sponsorships

Official NCAA Partnerships

Brands with official partnerships with the NCAA, such as Pizza Hut, Marriott Bonvoy, and Capital One, have a significant advantage in reaching the March Madness audience.

Pizza Hut: As the Official Pizza of March Madness, Pizza Hut is a top sponsor of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament year after year. For the 2023 tournament, they brought back a fan-favorite: mini basketballs. To add to the 90s nostalgia, Pizza Hut paired the basketballs with their classic Big New Yorker pizza, which came in a box that doubled as a hoop and backboard.
Marriott Bonvoy: As the Official Hotel Partner of the NCAA, Marriott Bonvoy is making the most of NIL deals with their “Score Big with Marriott Bonvoy Game Day Rituals” campaign. The ads feature NCAA basketball players going through their pregame rituals at various Marriott Bonvoy properties, highlighting the company’s close connection to the competition. The hotel group also gave a chance to all current and new Marriott Bonvoy members to win a trip to the Women’s Final Four in Cleveland, Ohio. The grand prize includes flights, hotel accommodations, courtside seats, and a game day rituals session with former Texas A&M player and current Texas women’s basketball coach Sydney Carter.
Capital One: Capital One has earned a fan-favorite reputation with its annual NCAA ads, which follow the adventures of Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley, and Spike Lee as they travel to the men’s basketball tournament. The #RoadToOne campaign started back in 2016, and whether it be through musical numbers, celebrity encounters, or visits with a fortune teller, Capital One has been able to incorporate their brand message into every commercial in a memorable way. Their “Champion Ship” ad from 2022 capitalized on the growing popularity of the women’s tournament.

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NIL Deals

NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals have opened up new avenues for brands to partner with college athletes, allowing them to use their influence to promote products and services. Marriott Bonvoy is making the most of NIL deals with their “Score Big with Marriott Bonvoy Game Day Rituals” campaign. The ads feature NCAA basketball players going through their pregame rituals at various Marriott Bonvoy properties, highlighting the company’s close connection to the competition.

Discover's Approach to College Football Marketing

Discover has been part of the fabric of college football for a while as the official credit card sponsor of the Big 10 athletic conference. They run advertising during the games and show up at the games, bringing fan experiences onsite, or interactive games that fans can play. The partnership with EA for "College Football 25" dovetails with these efforts. The goal is to have a presence and visibility in an additive way.

Engaging Fans Through Contests and Promotions

Bracket Challenges

Promoting a bracket contest can be a great way to further connect with your current customer base. Invite them to fill out official brackets for a prize or create one of your own using your brand’s niche. These challenges are a great way to engage your customers and generate excitement around your brand. The allure of predicting game outcomes is a central part of March Madness. And you can tap into this, too, by hosting bracket challenges.

ESPN’s Tournament Challenge in 2021 invited participants to submit their predictions, allowing up to 25 entries per person. Contestants had to aim and accurately predict all 63 games in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament. The highest scorer was rewarded with a lavish trip for two to the 2021 Maui Invitational in Hawaii, an experience valued at $18,000.

Boost participation by offering a tiered reward system. Recognize not only the top predictor but also those who achieve milestones like correctly guessing the Sweet 16 or Final Four teams. This encourages more entries and ongoing engagement throughout the tournament, making your contest even more exciting.

Flash Sales and Daily Deals

March Madness is a time of excitement and anticipation, and people are always looking for ways to celebrate. Having flash sales, daily deals, or time-bound offers in your store can be a great way to generate excitement and buzz around your Shopify store. You can offer discounts on your most popular products or on products that are related to basketball or March Madness.

Fanatics often have time-sensitive deals during important games, enticing fans to grab their favorite team's merchandise at a reduced price. As a Shopify store owner, you can utilize Shopify apps like Hextom Countdown Time Bar or Bold Discounts for adding countdown time bar, flash sales, and even daily deals.

Consider creating a "Shot Clock Savings" campaign. Run hourly or limited-time discounts, mirroring the quick pace of basketball games. This approach adds a sense of urgency and keeps your customers engaged as they eagerly await the next big deal.

Limited Edition Merchandise

Exclusive products always have a unique appeal. March Madness is a great opportunity to create and sell limited-edition merchandise. This could include t-shirts, hats, jerseys, and other items that are decorated with your brand's logo and March Madness-related designs. The goal is to attract all March Madness fans with merchandise that shares the same spirit of excitement, fun, and curiosity as the game.

Even if your store isn't sports-related, you can still get in on the March Madness fun. Take the online bakery, Southern Sugar Bakery, for example. They rolled out basketball and basketball hoop-shaped cookies just in time for March Madness viewing parties. You could get them in sets of a dozen or half a dozen. It's a clever way to join in the game-time excitement!

To make it even more enticing, consider running a "Score Big with Collectibles" campaign. Offer a small but valuable collectible item, like a limited-edition trading card or signed memorabilia, with the purchase of select merchandise. This can add an element of surprise and exclusivity, driving further interest and sales among March Madness enthusiasts.

Tournament-Related Bundles

Bundling products is a great way to increase your store's average order value. Create special March Madness bundles, like "Elite Eight Essentials" or "Final Four Favorites." To create a tournament-related bundle, simply group together products that are best-sellers from your store that share the theme or your special March Madness products that can be bundled together. You can use apps like Bundler and Zoorix to bundle your products.

Shopitree's Nintendo Switch OLED console bundle is a special deal as a part of their March Madness offers. It is the perfect time to gather with friends and family to watch some great basketball. And what's better than watching basketball than playing basketball video games? With the Nintendo Switch OLED console bundle with any 1 Mario game, shoppers could enjoy the best of both worlds.

Increase the appeal of your tournament-related bundles by coupling the exclusive March Madness merchandise strategy with this. You can also offer limited-time access to sports streaming services with each purchase. This extra value can entice customers to opt for your bundled deals, enhancing your average order value.

Predict the Winner Discount

Engage your audience by offering special discounts to those who correctly predict game outcomes. Shopify apps like POWR and Pop Convert are perfect for this one! Once the game is over, for those participants who answered correctly, you can contact them and send them the details to receive the prize! It's that easy. And trust us, a simple no-harm, no-cost 'predict the winner and win a prize' can get tons of responses, hence the engagement!

DraftKings.com, while primarily a betting platform, often has promotional offers tied to game predictions, which can be a source of inspiration for eCommerce stores to design their prediction-based discounts. Take your Predict the Winner Discount strategy to the next level by offering participants an extra bonus when they correctly guess the final score or key player statistics, such as points or rebounds. This added challenge can generate even more excitement and engagement.

March Madness Giveaways

Everyone loves freebies. Host giveaways on your site or social media platforms, offering products, gift cards, or even game tickets. Racknerd.com, a popular services solution, previously ran giveaways during the tournament, offering iPads, 3D printers, and more. This not only boosts engagement but also increases brand visibility as participants often share such contests, attracting more potential customers.

Shopify apps like Gleam Competitions and Social Boost Giveaway Contest are perfect for the job! You can effortlessly establish and execute giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes to boost genuine user participation.

Enhance your March Madness giveaways by collaborating with influencers or sports bloggers. Their endorsements can add authenticity to your promotions and attract a broader audience of sports enthusiasts to participate. To promote the giveaway, consider creating visually appealing promotional pages for your store and entry forms. Questions like "Which team will win?" or "Who'll be the MVP?" can drive interactions. Shopify survey apps like Zigpoll Customer Surveys can enhance your March Madness marketing by enabling you to create and deliver engaging social polls and quizzes. You can also consider POWR’s Customer Survey app for this task.

Social Media Contests and Challenges

Collaborating with relevant influencers can amplify your brand's message, reach a wider audience, and build credibility through trusted endorsements. Leverage micro-influencers in college towns for targeted regional campaigns that resonate with local fan bases. Partner with a local sports blogger in Durham to promote your sports bar's Duke game-day specials. Have them create Instagram Stories showcasing your exclusive "Blue Devils Bundle" meals while providing live commentary during games. Collaborate with popular campus representatives in Lexington to promote your Kentucky-themed merchandise.

LG brilliantly utilized the opportunity of the March Madness buzz with their #LoveTheGame promotion. They offered a $200 gift card for Fanatics, a top-tier online sports merchandise platform, with the purchase of two eligible appliances. Bose's partnership with NCAA stars like Aliyah A. Boston and Chet Holmgren for their #RuleTheQuiet campaign shows the way. With Bose's noise-canceling headphones, these college basketball stars are tuned out from distractions and haters alike. By connecting with basketball fans, Bose boosted their brand's visibility. Such collaborations and engagement via social media during March Madness can be a game-changer for your Shopify store.

Maximizing Social Media Engagement

Hashtag Campaigns

MarchMadness, the official hashtag of the tournament, is essential to generate impressions and create awareness during the month. FanDuel harnessed the power of the hashtag to drive engagement during March Madness 2022. Throughout the tournament, the company shared several amusing March Madness Memes with the caption #MarchMadness to get in on the fun.

Joining the Conversation

Joining social media conversations - where it makes sense for your brand - is a great way to engage with customers and promote your products during March Madness.

SKIMS' Social Media Campaign

For March Madness 2024, SKIMS launched a highly successful and engaging social media campaign that combined high fashion with the excitement of college basketball. The campaign showcased the brand’s expansion into menswear while strategically tapping into the fervor of collegiate sports. Leveraging the popularity of NCAA athletes, SKIMS featured players sporting its products in visually striking content that resonated with male college basketball fans.

Creating Memorable Experiences

Buffalo Wild Wings’ “Overtime Wingtime” Sales

Maximize March Madness marketing with game-time unpredictability. Buffalo Wild Wings' Overtime Wingtime promotion is iconic. When tournament games hit overtime, free wings drew massive crowds. This boosted in-store traffic and social media buzz with fans sharing free wings. By tying into real-time moments, B-Dubs created win-win for brand visibility and customer engagement, increasing sales of drinks and appetizers.

Pop-Tarts Bowl

The Pop-Tarts Bowl debuted an edible mascot, taking fan engagement to a new (and delicious) level. The real takeaway isn’t about mayonnaise or Pop-Tarts; it’s about creating moments that stick in people’s minds.

Highlighting Individuals and Supporting the Community

People connect with people, not faceless brands. Highlighting individuals and supporting your community creates trust, loyalty, and relatability. Feature local personalities by partnering with local influencers, high school athletes, or community leaders to showcase your brand. Empower employees by highlighting your team in marketing materials. Give back by offering sponsorships or scholarships for local events or programs. Make holidays special, for example, during Valentine’s Day, a jewelry shop could offer “proposal kits” with champagne and flowers for couples ready to pop the question.

Utilizing On-Field Advertisements

Bowl Season Highlight

The NCAA’s approval of on-field ads brought sponsor logos front and center during games, ensuring maximum visibility for brands. These ads were impossible to ignore, both live and on-screen. Strategic placement of your brand where it’s guaranteed to be seen can significantly impact visibility and recall.

Strategic Local Sponsorships

Sponsor banners at community events, high school games, or local parades. Leverage video by posting behind-the-scenes videos of your bakery making its famous bread or your electrician team wiring a custom lighting installation.

Understanding the College Football Fan Base

College football fans are more than just passionate spectators-they are one of the most valuable audiences in sports marketing. With unmatched loyalty, regional pride, and digital engagement, this audience represents a cultural and commercial force that brands cannot afford to overlook. College football fans bring together scale, purchasing power, and cultural influence-making them a must-reach audience for marketers in 2025 and beyond.

College Football Fan Demographics

College football fans are financially strong and brand-ready. They also maintain higher-than-average credit scores, signaling financial stability and purchasing readiness. Their media engagement over-indexes across sports platforms, making them highly reachable across multiple channels. Nearly half of them (45%) watch ESPN, a rate on par with the national benchmark, while 14% tune into Fox Sports - slightly above average. Their engagement extends beyond TV into digital, where sites like 1500espn.com index at 117, showing above-average popularity among this audience. Radio remains a key medium as well: 17% of college football fans listen to ESPN Radio, and FOX Sports Radio indexes at 123, underscoring its strong appeal.

While Houston and Chicago stand out as city-level leaders in the college football fandom, with Houston showing the highest concentration of college football fans at 75%, the sport’s true heartland extends far beyond. College football fans dominate across the South (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina) and the Midwest (Ohio, Nebraska), with Ohio in particular showing exceptional affinity (index 130). Interestingly, at the DMA level, smaller markets like Lima, OH (150), North Platte, NE (149), and Zanesville, OH (135) emerge as college football strongholds, underscoring that meaningful fan bases exist nationwide and give brands both regional depth and national reach.

College Football Fans on Social Media

College football fans don’t just watch games - they extend their engagement across screens, genres, and time slots. They demonstrate higher engagement with extended viewing durations overall - indexing between 104 and 230 for 1-2 hours, 4-6 hours, and even up to 20+ hours per day. They are multi-genre, cross-duration, and late-night viewers, creating rich opportunities for both short-form activations and longer storytelling campaigns across digital and broadcast platforms. Their content interests reveal even more opportunities for alignment, with a significant portion of the audience being 18+ (58.5%). They also index moderately to highly for health and wellness, social issues, and politics/government, signaling a willingness to engage with broader cultural conversations.

Elevate Personas: Understanding Different Types of Fans

Elite Academic Achievers: Affluent decision-makers with discretionary income and strong brand loyalty, who view college football as a networking tool and intellectual exercise.
Southern Sports Enthusiasts: Regional powerhouses who value tradition, authenticity, and community, and are loyal to heritage brands.
Digital-First Trendsetters: Fans for whom authenticity, relatability, and digital-first engagement are key, and who see college football as a lifestyle expression shaped by digital culture.

The Madden and NCAA 25 Game

Released last month, “EA Sports College Football 25” is Electronic Arts’ first college football game since 2013, following a long drought caused by legal issues surrounding the use of college athletes’ likenesses. “EA Sports College Football 25” is Electronic Arts’ first major release since the publisher’s Q4 2024 earnings call, during which CEO Andrew Wilson flagged that EA would be exploring more options for in-game ads in the coming year.

Initial Gameplay Impressions

The controls are significantly different from Madden. Passing is all about timing. The game is better than expected but the intensity and split second timing required to win games makes for a love / hate relationship. A major critique is basic tackling, especially trying to bring down a speedy Wide Receiver. It’s absolutely critical to not switch your Defensive Backs at the last minute, otherwise you’ll get absolutely torched by a WR for stopping your defensive momentum. Time your player switch at the last moment - seemingly a split second from the potential WR catch - and try to swat or intercept the ball.

Defensive Strategies

Utilize the player lock feature by double clicking the left thumb stick. This takes time to practice but is especially useful when playing an online matchup and you have a feeling your opponent will be throwing to a particular spot or player. Take control of the DB, drop back in zone and break up (or intercept) a pass with player lock. Reaction time on either side of the ball will make or break your on-field performance.

Tackling Techniques

Traditional, button-based, tackling is the way to go. You absolutely need to have your player facing the ball carrier and also be able to anticipate their direction. Utilize player lock with your left analog and try to anticipate the direction of the ball carrier.

Offensive Strategies

Mastering the analog stick flick and button combos at the right time is key. College Football is very much a pass-dominated game, but, in order to be successful, you need a balanced offensive attack. Running the ball can be tricky at times but the seemingly fundamental aspects of ball carrying (ie. hitting the right holes) is so critical and even the slightest analog movements can result in a huge play or embarrassingly running into your O-Lineman. Utilize Running Backs with the intention of running straight lines only after the QB hikes the ball. Picture a track for your RB to run down to get past the first level of the defense - AND THEN - utilize the offensive ball-carrying controls of juking, spinning etc. Simply stated, if you move too early with your Running Back, it almost always seems like the defender will gobble you up in the backfield. Be sure to remember the designed route for the ball carrier, stick to it and then hit the defense with some fancy analog stick work.

Passing and Leading Receivers

CPU defense in College Football 25’s feels like an absolute swarm most of the time. When it comes to throwing a pass, it’s the age-old challenge of lob vs laser to hit an open receiver but in College Football 25, you significantly better your chances of a completion when you throw to a spot - something that wasn’t offered in the previous games. To throw to a spot in College Football 25, use the “Placement & Accuracy” passing type, which allows for more precise passes and control over power through visual targets. Lead the receiver: As the receiver runs their route, lead them by throwing the ball to the spot where they will be, taking into account their speed and the defender's position.

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