NCAA’s March Madness social media rules are holding teams back

The NCAA’s social media highlight posting policies continue to be stuck in a bygone era — and schools are paying the price for it.

The March Madness “Digital Highlight and Footage Use Policy,” which is available publicly on the NCAA website, places tight restrictions on the highlights institutions are allowed to post.

On Snapchat, Twitter/X, and TikTok, institutions are not allowed to post their own highlights at all. They can only link to or embed official NCAA-posted highlights. If something unique happens on a broadcast and the NCAA’s social media pages never post it, teams could be out of luck.

The terms are slightly better on Instagram and Facebook. After games end, schools can post up to one minute of footage per game. Each post is capped at :30, with a maximum of two posts per game.

This has already affected teams’ social media strategies. The Nebraska men’s basketball account announced that it would not post its usual cinematic recap. Virginia men’s basketball said its in-game posts would be limited to “GIFs, memes and notes app art.”

These rules may have made sense in an earlier era of digital media, when such restrictions were primarily targeted at official websites, but are now just hurting teams. Unfortunately for the NCAA and its media rights partners, it is extremely easy to find March Madness highlights online.

Preventing teams from posting highlights officially means they see less engagement on social media for big moments. Instead, that engagement goes to unaffiliated aggregators, who can be first and don’t have to worry about these restrictions.

Many professional leagues don’t have these restrictions. Major League Baseball playoff highlights, for example, are regularly posted by teams. A big home run can generate thousands of likes — the kind of engagement college basketball teams are missing out on.

Don’t worry, though: teams can pay a hefty sum for fewer highlight restrictions on Facebook and Instagram. The additional access will cost teams $5,000, according to Duke men’s basketball creative director David Bradley. Even then, the looser rules only allow for an extra five minutes of highlights, still limited to 30 seconds per post.

The NCAA specifically sells this package as “designed to allow Member Schools to provide their fans with the same customary social media coverage for all NCAA Championships as every regular season Conference controlled game.”

The NCAA and its media rights partners are well within their rights to implement restrictions on highlights. The NCAA only monetizes its product when fans watch its official video. But hampering the growth of the social media presence of the schools that play in its tournament is just another way the NCAA is shooting itself in the foot.