In the United States, college basketball's "March madness" distracts many employees, with betting pools and water cooler conversations. In London, the talk of the trading desks and offices throughout Canary Wharf and the City has been of a different kind of collegiate mania: the annual race on the Thames between Oxford and Cambridge.

It may just be the biggest sporting event you have never heard of.

Yes, that's right, it's collegiate rowing. On Saturday, 250,000 spectators will line on the banks of the Thames and local pubs will be jammed past capacity.

By all rights, the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race -- called simply the Boat Race -- in this day of mega-marketed professional teams should be more a quaint local amusement than a premier international sporting event.

But 179 years after the first competition, the race has managed to expand its popularity into the 21st century. The race averages a television audience in excess of 7 million viewers in Britain -- about the same as the Wimbledon men's finals last year.

And it is estimated that 100 million people worldwide will watch on television as the 16 amateur oarsmen push the bounds of human stamina in a grueling 4.5 mile battle down the Thames.

As the Boat Race grows in international popularity and companies increasingly pour their ad dollars into event sponsorship, organizers are getting wise to the potential to monetize the contest.

"The whole media landscape has changed," says Nick Walford, chief operating officer of Mindshare Performance, a global marketing group. "The world has changed from where brands look to engage consumers more through activity they're interested in - hence sports sponsorship."

The race is organized by the Boat Race Company Ltd, jointly owned by the Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club (All proceeds go back into the rowing programs). This year BRCL went as far as hiring marketing consulting firm Sports Impact to help raise the profile of the event.

As a sign of just how deeply corporate involvement has penetrated the Boat Race: While the oarsmen have long trained in branded gear throughout the season, Saturday will mark the first time the athletes have worn a sponsor's logo on race day.

Sponsorship at the university level, while not unheard of in Britain, is unusual. The 1977 Boat Race was the first to feature a corporate sponsor, and since then corporate partnerships have been increasingly visible.

The current sponsor is Xchanging, a fast-growing business process services company which reportedly paying 4 million pounds ($8 million) to be the race's sole sponsor for five years. When previous sponsor Aberdeen Asset Management first inked their deal in 1999, they are said to have paid around 1.4 million pounds ($2.8 million) over three years.

"The Boat Race is a world class event with growing international appeal," says the chief executive of Xchanging, David Andrews, of the company's decision to fund the race. "This growing internationalism ties in well with Xchanging's vision to become the leading global pure play business processor."

In addition to Xchanging, this year race organizers have also formed separate promotional partnerships with BT, clothing brand Hackett, and Sharp's Brewery. BRCL has worked with the Daily Telegraph to produce a special eight-page promotional supplement to appear in the newspaper in advance of the race.

Television rights have also served as a major cash cow for event organizers.

After 66 years of BBC coverage, rights to the live race switched hands to ITV, its largest commercial competitor. In 2005 ITV is reported to have paid 1.75 million pounds ($3.5 million) over five years, a price which BBC was unwilling or unable to match.

ITV says the Boat Race is the most demanding outdoor broadcast they cover; this year, the network will use 28 land cameras and 8 more on boats and in the air.

As to how this single intercollegiate race has managed to create such a stir? Nick Robinson, a former Oxford University Boat Club president, credits the sport's accessibility, the role of tradition, and recent years' nail-biting contests, which have come down to as little as a foot over a 4 mile, 374 yard course.

Other "Old Blues," as former competitors are termed, speculate that spectators are reacting to the sheer drama of a race that serves as the single test of nine months of the students' unbearably rigorous training.

"It's a brutal 'winner-takes-all' battle of gladiatorial proportions -- there are no prizes for coming second," Andrews says.

The race will be broadcast in the United States on ESPNU on Saturday, beginning at 12:45 PM EST.

Liz Gunnison