Industry executives project online ad revenue for the NCAA tournament will reach $30 million dollars this year, up 30% from 2008 according to Business Week. Companies like AT&T and Coca Cola lead a list of 35 online advertisers for CBS this year. Anyone watching the NCAA tournament games this weekend has no doubt seen the Capital One commercial where the mom picks the picture of her kid covered in spaghetti to put on her credit card.

But does anybody care? The trend chart below shows that overall Internet chatter about both AT&T and Capital One is flat, if not down since the tournament started. If online sponsors aren’t getting any more chatter, what are they getting? Is the sponsorship investment paying off?