This is a busy time of year for many people across U.S. as March Madness is here and the basketball tournament brackets close today. Millions of people across America make their picks and predictions on which teams will make it through the Finals of the NCAA Men Basketball Tournament using a number of resources available online.
And while basketball fans are busy making their picks online or in the office – domain investors and web professionals have been gearing up for March Madness all year long. At this time of the year, many domain owners and webmasters see a significant jump in traffic to their college basketball web sites. Some domains and web sites see their traffic go up fivefold, tenfold and even higher.
March Madness Web Sites
The NCAA.com website receives on average under 1 million visitors per month. But in March during the Men’s Basketball tournament is an entirely different story.
Traffic to the the official website of NCAA Championships spikes to almost 6 million visitors. Even other sites like CollegeHoopsnet.com, which regularly see about 40,000 visitors per month, gets a quarter million visitors in March each year.
March Madness Domain Names
When it comes to the best domains in this category, the National Collegiate Athletic Association owns most of them including:
NCAA.com
NCAATournament.com
MarchMadness.com
FinalFour.com
TheFinalFour.com
In many cases, they also own the .net and .org. And most of the domains re-direct visitors to the NCAA.com home page. But the NCAA doesn’t own all the keywords associated with the College Basketball Tournament, which is one of the most popular sports event in the United States.
BigDance.com, Brackets.com, TournamentBrackets.com, CollegeBasketball.com, EliteEight.com, SweetSixteen.com – are all owned by other people or companies.
EliteEight.com and TournamentBrackets.com are parked with Sedo, a popular domain marketplace. CollegeBasketball.com is owned by domain investor and developer Don Orr of iVenture.com. SweetSixteen.com, another phrase associated with March Madness in addition to birthdays, at the time of writing doesn’t resolve. BigDance.com was purchased by one lucky owner in 2007 for only $560.
March Madness and Sports Betting
While the debate whether to legalize online sports betting in the United States continues, during March Madness even people who don’t do any type of wagering all year long, get pulled in. Most of them in office pools, some betting online with offshore bookmakers.
Office pools give people a shot at owning bragging rights for picking the winning teams. And while office pools are for the most part illegal when they involve cash, that doesn’t stop millions of people from getting in on the game. ESPN and CBS Sports are amongst the web sites that offer users to view, download and print up to the minute tournament brackets.
If you’re considering to get started into domain development, March Madness and online sports betting in general are rich with opportunities. And if you’re passionate about basketball or any other sport, it could make the process of developing a web property a lot easier. Take a look at what iVenture.com did with their recent acquisition of Picks.com, now a sports handicapping portal.
If you are looking to get started GamblingInvest.com is here to assist. And if you have recently launched an online betting site or portal, let us know, we may have even write a story about it. 
