{"id":2351,"date":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otava.test\/march-madness\/"},"modified":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","slug":"march-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"internal-source-marker_0.3159071814508062\" dir=\"ltr\">Let the data demand \u2018Madness\u2019 begin in basketball arenas and workplaces across the country.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The NCAA announced the teams participating in its postseason basketball tournament on Sunday, triggering the start of office pools, extended lunch hours and an incredible demand on company bandwidth.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The first two days of March Madness take place during work hours on Thursday and Friday and 86 percent of fans say they\u2019ll watch games or check scores at work. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &amp; Christmas found that American businesses stand to lose close to $4 billion in productivity over the entirety of the 16-day tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Since CBS first struck a deal with Yahoo! In 2003 to offer live streaming of the tournament, the popularity of online viewing has skyrocketed. The Internet Innovation Alliance <a href=\"https:\/\/www.internetinnovation.org\/library\/ncaa\/\">estimated<\/a> more than 17 million total hours of streamed games online via computer, tablet or smartphone in 2012.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Smartphones and tablets changed the game in recent years. The tournament&#8217;s live-streaming games are accessible to office workers who have sports and entertainment sites blocked by employers, as well as those workers who aren&#8217;t in front of a computer during the workday.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">After the first round of last year\u2019s tournament, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.comscore.com\/Insights\/Press_Releases\/2012\/3\/March_Multi-Screen_Madness\">comScore measured<\/a> a 79 percent increase in traffic to sports-related internet content. Twenty percent of that traffic came from non-computer devices.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/march-madness-live\/\">NCAA\u2019s website<\/a> will stream every game of the 2013 tournament live and it <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/ncaa-march-madness-live\/id423246594?ls=1&amp;mt=8\">offers an app<\/a> on iTunes for live streaming on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe NCAA Tournament, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics, is one of those events where sports fans don\u2019t want to miss a beat of the action \u2013 especially if they can\u2019t be in front of a TV,\u201d said comScore senior director Debbie Bradley. \u201cOver the past several years we\u2019ve seen fans become more reliant on the web for NCAA tournament coverage, especially while they\u2019re tied to their desks at work during the first round matchups.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">IT professionals are asked to help combat that lost productivity while protecting the office network. According to a Braun Research survey, 65 percent say their company attempts to hinder or prevent streaming video content at the office; 42 percent say they monitor employees who are trying to access video streams and 34 percent report that employees\u2019 game-watching has shut down their networks.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Of course, those IT professionals could leave those concerns to the staff at Online Tech. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinetech.com\/managed-dedicated-servers\/overview\">managed servers<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinetech.com\/cloud-computing-hosting\/overview\">cloud hosting<\/a> services include high availability power and network infrastructures, a 100-percent uptime service level agreement and 24&#215;7 monitoring and management!<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>PICK \u2018EM<\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Here\u2019s another service you probably didn\u2019t expect Online Tech to offer: Help filling out your NCAA Tournament bracket. We handicapped the field a little differently than most prognosticators, however, forgoing records, statistics and matchups for the US News &amp; World Report\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/education\/worlds-best-universities-rankings\/best-universities-computer-science\">ranking<\/a> of the world\u2019s best computer science programs.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In our bracket, California beats Harvard in the title game. They may be No. 12 and No. 13 seeds in the tournament, respectively, but they\u2019re No. 4 and No. 5 on the US News &amp; World Report rankings. So until MIT or Carnegie Mellon builds a better basketball program, that\u2019s our pick.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Other teams to watch: UCLA (#12), Illinois (#20) and Michigan (#43).<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(Note: Considering our <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinetech.com\/company\/michigan-data-centers\/locations\/mid-michigan-data-center\">location<\/a>, our <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinetech.com\/company\/online-tech-team\">co-CEO Yan Ness\u2019<\/a> alma mater and our recently-granted scholarships to future IT and healthcare talent at the university, Michigan is our pick.)<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Resources:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/business.time.com\/2012\/03\/15\/ncaa-march-madness-and-money-by-the-numbers\/\">NCAA March Madness and Money, by the Numbers<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/id\/46648811\/ns\/technology_and_science-science\/t\/it-departments-brace-march-madness\/#.UUdtCRzvt2N\">IT Departments Brace for March Madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let the data demand \u2018Madness\u2019 begin in basketball arenas and workplaces across the country. The NCAA announced the teams participating in its postseason basketball tournament on Sunday, triggering the start of office pools, extended lunch hours and an incredible demand on company bandwidth. The first two days of March Madness take place during work hours on Thursday and Friday and 86 percent of fans say they\u2019ll watch games or check scores at work. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &amp; Christmas found that American businesses stand to lose close to $4 billion in productivity over the entirety of the 16-day tournament. Since CBS first struck a deal with Yahoo! In 2003 to offer live streaming of the tournament, the popularity of online viewing has skyrocketed. The Internet Innovation Alliance estimated more than 17 million total hours of streamed games online via computer, tablet or smartphone in 2012. Smartphones and tablets changed the game in recent years. The tournament&#8217;s live-streaming games are accessible to office workers who have sports and entertainment sites blocked by employers, as well as those workers who aren&#8217;t in front of a computer during the workday. After the first round of last year\u2019s tournament, comScore measured a 79 percent&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"other_category":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-technology-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness | OTAVA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let the data demand \u2018Madness\u2019 begin in basketball arenas and workplaces across the country. The NCAA announced the teams participating in its postseason basketball tournament on Sunday, triggering the start of office pools, extended lunch hours and an incredible demand on company bandwidth. The first two days of March Madness take place during work hours on Thursday and Friday and 86 percent of fans say they\u2019ll watch games or check scores at work. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &amp; Christmas found that American businesses stand to lose close to $4 billion in productivity over the entirety of the 16-day tournament. Since CBS first struck a deal with Yahoo! In 2003 to offer live streaming of the tournament, the popularity of online viewing has skyrocketed. The Internet Innovation Alliance estimated more than 17 million total hours of streamed games online via computer, tablet or smartphone in 2012. Smartphones and tablets changed the game in recent years. The tournament&#8217;s live-streaming games are accessible to office workers who have sports and entertainment sites blocked by employers, as well as those workers who aren&#8217;t in front of a computer during the workday. After the first round of last year\u2019s tournament, comScore measured a 79 percent...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OTAVA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-20T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Irma Brillantes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Irma Brillantes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Irma Brillantes\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#\/schema\/person\/35774075f8f4fcdd4eae80cb72034263\"},\"headline\":\"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-20T00:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\"},\"wordCount\":587,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Information Technology Tips\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\",\"name\":\"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness | OTAVA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-20T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/\",\"name\":\"OTAVA\u00ae\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"OTAVA\u00ae\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/otava-logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/otava-logo.svg\",\"caption\":\"OTAVA\u00ae\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/#\/schema\/person\/35774075f8f4fcdd4eae80cb72034263\",\"name\":\"Irma Brillantes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5251bebc1699793a698d1a6158603cb3cdc50a095a12357e42d415b3e5546c2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5251bebc1699793a698d1a6158603cb3cdc50a095a12357e42d415b3e5546c2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5251bebc1699793a698d1a6158603cb3cdc50a095a12357e42d415b3e5546c2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Irma Brillantes\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/author\/ibrillantesotava-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness | OTAVA","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/march-madness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Managed Data Center Operator Expects High Data Demands During March Madness","og_description":"Let the data demand \u2018Madness\u2019 begin in basketball arenas and workplaces across the country. 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