An agreement between Time Warner?s Turner Sports and the National Collegiate Athletic Association with Snapchat to provide user-generated content during the March Madness basketball tournament will burnish the mobile application's reputation as the new event-based consumption experience for millennials.

Under the agreement, confirmed by a source close to the deal, fans who submit tournament-related content will be asked for consent to have it potentially be seen as part of the March Madness story on Snapchat, a mobile app that allows users to send and receive disappearing photos and videos. The pact shows how mobile is the key to unlocking the sports event space and how a brand relevant to an event can gain value through association with consumer created/curated content.

?Leveraging fan content is an authentic way to showcase the passion of the fans and this type of content is easily relatable, especially for those fans that may not be able to attend the event,? said Tom Edwards, executive vice president for digital strategy and innovation with The Marketing Arm, Dallas. ?By leveraging content created at events by fans, it provides a natural path to consumption by those not in attendance.  

?Snapchat provides access to the highly coveted millennial audience,? he said. ?With over half of the US population aged 12-24 at least trying the platform, Snapchat is focused on becoming the new event based consumption experience for millennials.?

The 2015 NCAA Men?s Division I basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, is a premium event that sparks fans? interest in sharing enthusiasm and pageantry for their teams with other fans and friends. The tournament broadcast is jointly produced by CBS Sports and Turner Sports.

March Madness drew more than 60 million viewers last year and averaged an audience of 10.7 million per game. 

 

The deal gives the tournament Web content and broadcast?s producers an opportunity to share content with fans across a new platform, not dissimilar to what they do with other social media platforms.

The agreement is a way for Snapchat and Turner/CBS to run a non-financial test to see how tournament content resonates with fans on the Snapchat platform. 

From a Snapchat perspective, crafting a partnership with the rights holders may lead to potential co-op opportunities for both parties. 

?This is hypothetical but the move aligns with Snapchat?s monetization strategy around Our Stories, which leverages fan created content with brand interstitials,? Mr. Edwards said. 

Although the partnership could create opportunities for advertisers and marketers, the project is more of an experiment to evaluate interest in the platform content, according to the source.

If the engagement level is sufficient, Turner could seek to sell ads later, the source said.

Under the agreement, fans who submit user generated content surrounding the NCAA Tournament will be asked if they consent to having the material seen on Snapchat. Snapchat will then curate the video and publish it through its story platform.

While Twitter typically dominates social media marketing around live sports events, March Madness marketers have been paying closer attention to Snapchat, as the mobile messaging application's standing continues to grow. 

On the heels of its role in the Super Bowl in January, Snapchat?s growing prominence in the winter college basketball classic points to how marketers increasingly recognize that letting user generated content flow is a key way to engage fans on mobile.

Snapchat, like Twitter, is becoming synonymous with news and large-scale broadcasting. The platform can record and report live experiences at the games, allowing people who are not at the event to feel they are part of it.  

?These partnerships strengthen the Snapchat Our Story offering as Snapchat can seamlessly bridge the connection between a physical and digital event experience,? Mr. Edwards said. ?A brand that is relevant to the event can gain value through association with consumer created/curated content.?