For fans, the possibility of viewing the entire NCAA Tournament has never been better. Nobody needs to pay extra – on cable or satellite – nor does anyone need to search through a myriad of channels.
All the action will be handled on four outlets – CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV (formerly Court TV). And the tournament will have a definite New York sound.
Marv Albert will lead off the coverage, calling the first play-in doubleheader Tuesday night with Steve Kerr and Craig Sager on TruTV (DirecTV Channel 246). North Carolina A&T will face Liberty at 6:30 and Middle Tennessee State will engage Saint Mary’s at 9 in Dayton, Ohio, as part of “The First Four.”
The addition of Albert will certainly add zest to those games. He will also call second-round games on TruTV.
Also scheduled to work are familiar New York voices such as Spero Dedes, Ian Eagle and Bill Raftery.
This is the best setup the NCAA Tournament has ever had. Coverage has evolved over several years to what it is presently.
Years ago, NCAA Productions beamed games regionally to the home area of a team. Not all opening-round games were televised. NBC handled the tournament from 1969-81, with Dick Enberg, Billy Packer Al McGuire the lead team.
CBS gained rights to the tournament in 1981, and, in conjunction with ESPN, carried the event in that manner until 1991. ESPN attempted to telecast as many first-round games as possible – over 24 hours. It was ESPN’s first major postseason contract and, with capacity reached with one channel, led to the creation of ESPN2 and other related channels.
Then, from 1991-2010, CBS earned rights to televise every game, but not all games were seen in all areas, prompting fans who might have attended an East Coast school, but living on the West Coast, to find fault with that format.
A fan had to find a facility that had a C-Band satellite until 2002, when DirecTV offered a “Mega Madness’’ pay package of all games. Like its other sports packages, games available on a local CBS station were blacked out by Zip Code. The package cost $69, and ran through 2010, after which it was really not needed.
Various on-line packages, at times free and at times pay, including “March Madness On Demand,’’were added over the past several years as well as high-speed internet took hold in most of the United States.
Fans can watch games on-line live, both on a computer and on various mobile devices. Check www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/ for information. Games aired on CBS can simply be streamed. Games carried on cable – TBS, TNT and TruTV – will require authentication and log-in to your cable or satellite provider like HBOGo or MaxGo.
Since 2010, all games – with CBS and Turner as partners – are broadcast live nationally, with CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV handling all the telecasts. Life has never been better for the viewer. The present contract, with a few adjustments in what outlet airs what rounds, is in effect through 2024.
