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The NCAA Men's Division I tournament is a rite of passage marking the transition from winter to spring for many Americans. To help fans keep up with all the action, Avantgo kicked off its annual College Hoops mobile channel today.

The channel delivers game-day information directly to users' smartphones and PDAs wirelessly or through desktop synchronization. Users receive news and editorials from The Sporting News plus up-to-date scores, schedules, and bracket information.

As an added bonus, you may even find out all you've ever wanted to know about sponsor Nissan's new Infiniti M luxury performance sedan. And Nissan gets to reach a target audience of 24-54 year olds.

Both Avantgo and Nissan know just how pervasive March Madness and college hoops are in the real and virtual worlds.

Senior director of Avantgo Neil Versen says, "The NCAA basketball tournament is the most popular online sporting event each year, thanks to the popularity of brackets and office pools. More and more, users are relying on wireless access to information that is important to them-such as tournament scores and stats."

AvantGo parent company iAnywhere Solutions (a Sybase subsidiary) asserts its advertiser conversion rates range from 15-20 percent and click-through rates average 5-10 times higher than typical Internet advertising.