March Madness Off the Court and On: Media and Gambling/Sportsbook Are Under Pressure To Perform

In March, there are a lot more than just basketballs in play. Eyeballs turn their gaze toward a wide variety of screens as the dance we call March Madness begins. According to Forbes and ESPN, last year’s women’s finale averaged 9.92 million viewers (peaking at 12.6 million) and became the most watched women’s college basketball game at the time. And even though the men’s championship game had a record low of 14.69 million viewers in 2023 (following a trend of dropping viewership since 2018), that’s still a lot of cumulative viewership, not to mention all the games leading up to the championships.

When it comes to courting new users of your streaming platform or gambling app, there are a lot of considerations, some of them shared between the two sectors. 

In this blog, I touch on a few high-level considerations for streaming sports and sportsbook providers – most that revolve around the user experience, from onboarding new users and retention to keeping existing users happy. 

Complexity plays big in the March Madness game

Life is complicated. Leading app developers understand this and strive to make their digital experiences simple, pleasing and frictionless. The streaming content sector could very well be the poster child for complexity. For example, here’s a glimpse at how you stream March Madness on a roku device:

Still, complexity need not necessarily signify problems for users, as long as some key strategic and planning elements are addressed. 

Customer journeys score big when done right

It’s a fortunate axiom that challenges present opportunities for improvement –  always. Of course, certain networks get contracts for the March Madness tournament, and so an overall consolidation for the benefit and ease of the viewer might be too much to ask here. Streaming content providers must consider that if avid fans are going to jump through all the hoops involved in watching all rounds of March Madness – beyond the effort they make to watch –  they will expect stellar experiences as table stakes. This is where the opportunity exists to get things right.

While the customer journey should always be a primary concern for streaming content providers, major sporting events like March Madness bring more prospective customers to your door. Why not wow them with easy onboarding, intuitive navigation, helpful tutorials/guidance and flawless performance that keeps them around? How do you do this? You must test with real users, well before the big event arrives. Only then can you get the real-world feedback around what’s working, on which networks and streaming devices in various parts of the world, as well as friction points. 

Also, if your goal is to keep it simple for your customers – and it should be – then consider implementing a comprehensive strategy that incorporates UX research and various testing facets, such as functional, usability and payment testing. Nothing says “welcome, we aim to please,” like a smooth, intuitive customer journey that, most importantly, onboards without issues, delivers what the user wants… and even presents some unexpected bonuses along the way. 

Gambling apps and March Madness can be a slam dunk

I’ve covered streaming media to this point, but gambling app providers are perhaps under even more pressure to score big during March Madness, as viewers complete brackets and participate in fantasy contests and more – all with cash on the line. The margin for error for these app providers must be negligible, or even better, non existent. If you’re luring new bettors to your sportsbook app, one of the key factors may be the sign-up offer. There’s a lot of competition and, again, a lot that has to go right to win the customer for the longer term.

There’s more on the line than just the initial offer to join. For example, how user-friendly is your app? Is onboarding easy? How fast can a new user transfer money in? How quickly can they place a bet? Are promo codes required and do they work correctly when applied? The list goes on. Add to this the ever-evolving legal regulations and geographic considerations/new markets around gambling and sportsbook apps, and the potential for more madness in March exists – if providers don’t get things right. Now, sportsbook operators can expect more competition as streaming providers get in the game: ESPN BET launched across 17 states on January 23, 2024.

Just like media providers, gambling and sportsbook operators must comply with state laws – and even in some cases – county/parish laws within a given state. Through careful geofencing, and the requisite testing involved, sportsbook operators must ensure that customers can place bets up to, but not beyond, state or county lines. It’s not enough to just do a global test within your organization or have your team do a regression test. The only truly accurate way to check this is to use real users in areas you wish to test, on a wide array of devices, OSes and carrier networks.    

E-Books

Cutting through the clutter

In a world where complexity and, perhaps, too many choices exist for many, there is a need to lift the cloud of confusion for customers. For example, the NCAA women’s tournament will be available on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews and ESPNU. DirecTV Stream, Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV provide access to all these networks. Sling TV subscribers can get the Blue Plan, which carries TBS, TNT and truTV, but not CBS. It’s important to note that you need CBS if you want to watch the men’s Final Four and NCAA championship games. FuboTV and Paramount+ Premium only have CBS and not TBS, TNT or truTV. Fans that want to livestream the women’s tournament can also check out FuboTV, which carries ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. However, you need to pay an additional $8 a month for the Fubo Extra add-on to get ESPNews and ESPNU. DirecTV Stream also charges more for these two channels. Lastly, viewers can also stream all tournaments on NCAA’s March Madness Live website or app. March Madness Live launched a multiview streaming option on the web last year. It allows viewers to watch up to four games simultaneously. Fans can also stream two games at once on connected TVs.

Streaming sports providers must make their best effort to help prospective customers find what they want and, should they choose to subscribe, diffuse the anxiety that consumers often feel after deciding to make a purchase. There’s only one chance to make a great first impression. 

Get viewers to their seat and ready to watch

Users love to get to why they’re using your app as quickly as possible, with little to no friction. Think of the last time someone summarized the small print of a contract for you, enabling you to get what you intended to do quickly. In the case of March Madness and extending beyond to professional sports, how do streaming content providers make the experience the best it can be for users? For one, they regularly test with real users who provide either specific or general insights around their experiences. 

From onboarding to their experiences setting up monthly payments within the app, testers can offer nuanced insights you simply can’t get without them. From their own research and feedback from these users, streaming providers implement new features to delight their user base, and entice new users to come on board. For example, in 2022, the LA Clippers launched ClipperVision, the first direct-to-consumer streaming platform in the NBA. It boasted many innovative enhancements to the viewing experience, including ClipperVision in Korean, the first Korean-language commentary available OTT in the L.A. market. Last year, in 2023, the NFL and Amazon Web Services (AWS), partnered to form Next Gen Stats, to “extract meaningful data from games and decipher patterns in player performances.” 

Innovations are great, but demand even more testing with users, particularly if providers are promoting these new features to entice new users. Of course, it should go without saying that innovations must be planned for well beyond a targeted launch, as technical issues can always arise. Such is the case with Max’s sports add-on, Bleacher Report, whose paid subscription was targeted to launch at the beginning of March Madness 2024, but now has been delayed due to integration issues, creating a significant loss in monetization for the provider. 

Don’t miss with marketing

Streaming content providers and sportsbook operators need to make the most of their marketing campaigns when it comes to big events like March Madness. Say a subscriber intends to join prior to March Madness, but has the intention of unsubscribing after the tournament. Your campaign intends to lure the new user to stay on, perhaps through offering an extended trial date or a lower introductory price for three months. It’s key to test the various customer flows you are considering to understand which flows produce the results you desire. Here again, testing with real users familiar with streaming sports apps and their broad array of payment instruments – from credit and debit cards to Apple Pay, PayPal and more – is key. Using a variety of testers from seasoned to new users of our app can give you the depth of insight you need to make marketing dollars pay off. 

Customers like ads… if they are personalized and reasonable 

I can’t mention marketing without mentioning the importance of ads. Recent hub research indicates that viewers are open to more advertising – particularly when there is a reasonable amount of ads and when seeing them means a reduction in their monthly bills. In addition, viewers want the option of choosing an ad-free plan if they wish, as providers are introducing new advertising-supported plans that can initially lower ARPU – the new metric that is becoming one of the critical data points tracked by Wall Street and providers, but have the potential to make up the difference, or even more revenue, over time.The trend seems to be that viewers’ priority is content, and how ads are used and personalized becomes a secondary consideration.

Here again, sports providers must consider state laws and geographic restrictions, for if they are running gambling/sportsbook ads, there are restrictions on where they may play. This component of streaming content and ad distribution can be quite complicated without a very well organized testing approach. 

Going for the three-point shot    

March Madness presents a complex set of challenges and opportunities for streaming sports and gambling/sportsbook providers, and more and more streaming providers are joining the live sports scene – as is the case with Netflix – making the space even more complex and calling for thoughtful testing and rollout.  

There are big events all year long – the Superbowl, World Series, Daytona 500, etc. To hit the mark, providers must routinely test their apps under the most realistic conditions that include the wide spectrum of user devices, operating systems. Live-event testing can play an important role here since, unlike most streamers’ content, live programming offers unique variables for testing. Some aspects of live programming can be validated before the show, but there’s no way to test it all beforehand — and it requires a comprehensive effort to get the job done during the broadcast.

Finally, streaming and sportsbook providers must fine-tune their customer journeys by making sure the user experience is optimal (including accessibility compliance and inclusive design efforts), carefully craft marketing efforts and adopt an interactive, never-one-and-done attitude to attracting and maintaining customers. Viewers don’t care about the complexity of the app, they just want it to work well and want to feel that the price of the app is substantiated by a great experience. One of the best ways to do this is to leverage the power of crowdtesting, where real users of their apps test and share insights around what is making points with them, and what is missing the mark.