ESPN – Women’s March Madness Campaign

For the 2026 NCAA Women's March Madness tournament, ESPN came to Mirada with a clear ambition: take a tournament with undeniable star power and make it a full-scale cultural moment. The result was Marquee Madness, a campaign system built to put women's basketball on the biggest stage it has ever occupied.

Women's basketball had the talent. What it needed was the creative treatment to match. ESPN needed a campaign that could close the gap between social buzz and sustained viewership, and position the tournament as a can't-miss, blockbuster event across ABC, ESPN, and the ESPN App.

Mirada answered with a campaign system built from the ground up. Strategy, creative development, live action production, design, and post all pulled toward one cinematic language, giving the tournament the cultural weight and visual identity of a true marquee event. From college game captures to a dedicated stage shoot, from a custom VFX pipeline to a scalable design system, every piece of the work was built to treat these athletes like the headliners they are.

Marquee Madness built a grand theatrical world where athletes are headliners and every game is a show-stopping premiere. Anchored by the platform line "Greatness Is Now Playing," the concept gave the campaign a unified cinematic language that extended across every format and platform.

Mirada led strategy, creative development, live action production, design, and post. Production teams traveled to multiple games to capture cinema-grade footage, while a dedicated stage shoot built the red carpet world from the ground up. A custom-built VFX pipeline, developed specifically for this campaign, unlocked new ways to relight footage and integrate live action and CG assets into the marquee architecture. The system extended across broadcast, social, out-of-home, key art, and experiential, with Director Mathew Miguel Cullen, ECD Robin Resella, and CD Vanessa Marzaroli leading the work alongside the ESPN team.