These Four NCAA Tournament Sponsors Might Make Your Portfolio Some Serious Money

Spring is here and that means Easter bunnies, hidden eggs, flowers blossoming, and spring cleaning. It also means that legions of people who didn’t watch one NCAA basketball game all season are about to become college hoops experts.

Yes, for a few weeks, basketball takes center stage during the NCAA tournament. Brackets are being constructed, billions in (illegal) bets will be made, and big-name corporate sponsors will shell out mega-money to be a part of the hype.

Just who are those sponsors? They’re the ones you would expect and most could have a place in your portfolio.

AT&T T- AT&T is that company with the monster 5 percent dividend. It’s up nearly 14 percent over the past 12 months and continues to head higher. Forbes reports that a report by IEG Consulting and Kantar Media’s ImageTrack found that AT&T gained $11.6 million worth of exposure during last year’s tournament.

Coca-Cola KO- If it’s good enough for Warren Buffett, it’s good enough for the rest of the long term income investors. A nearly 3 percent dividend, 12 months of gains equally nearly 12 percent and a low beta make it the perfect stock for all occasion.

Coca-Cola has a long history of going all-in on big events like the NCAA tournament. It was the second on the list of most bang for its buck last year. The report suggests that it received about $3.1 million in exposure.  Who hasn’t heard of Coke? Maybe that’s why the NCAA website displays Coca-Cola Zero as the sponsor.

Capital One COF- It doesn’t have the exposure of the bigger name financials like Bank of America BAC or JPMorgan Chase JPM and looking at its performance, it’s easy to see why. For investors who committed new money to the stock 12 months ago, all they have to show for it is the 0.4 percent dividend. The stock is down about 2 percent over the past year but analysts are generally positive on it with a mean price target of $64.72.

Much like the stock, the company didn’t have a lot to celebrate after last year’s tournament. Estimates show that the monetary value of its exposure was about 1.2 million.

Domino’s Pizza DPZ- If you plan to put away some pizza while watching the games, you’ll want, “the official pizza of the NCAA tournament,” right? Domino’s took the place of Papa John’s PZZA as the official pizza but it wasn’t because of stock performance.

Papa John’s is up more than 60 percent over the past year compared to Domino’s 25 percent. Both are solid names for your portfolio so maybe it should come down to which tastes better.