March Madness 2025 Ad Roundup: A Running List of NCAA Basketball Commercials and Activations
March Madness 2025 has tipped off, with the men’s and women’s tournament nearly selling out their sports marketing inventory across Paramount, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery channels and platforms.
But as collegiate conferences send their schools and brands to the Big Dance, advertisers make a play for a U.S. college sports fanbase that, according to sports media and technology firm Learfield, numbers roughly 195 million—or more than the NFL’s 161 million followers or the NBA’s 103 million.
We assembled a formidable starting lineup of the brands and ads appearing during the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments, but check this space for more sports and activations as teams dwindle and stakes increase.
Andersen Windows and Doors
Trust your home to Andersen
Behind its brand tagline, “Trust Your Home to Andersen,” the brand is bringing HGTV Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott into March Madness for a series of 6-, 15-, and 30-second spots highlighting the sometimes painfully distracting beauty of its product.
Their media partners at Collective Measures built off of the brand’s digital-only foray into last year’s men’s tournament and went with a digital-first approach to this year’s event: Splitting ads evenly between in-game linear offerings and those on streaming platforms including the March Madness Live app), TBS, TNT, truTV, Max, and DirecTV Stream.
In the interest of transparency (which is what you want from a window brand), the agency noted that the digital approach cut costs while capitalizing on the growth of streaming audiences during the tournament’s early rounds. Andersen found it received a boost in awareness during March Madness 2x greater than it received from other media, encouraging it to continue surrounding spots with digital and social ad placements.
