If I asked you what you would change to make the NCAA Tournament better and I eliminated the “having a celebrity feeding you like you’re A-Rod at the Super Bowl while you watch the games on your sofa” option, you’d probably say televise all the games and space them out a little so there aren’t two or three buzzer-beaters happening at the same time. Done and done.
Last April CBS and Turner signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal with the NCAA for the tournament broadcast rights. The combination of CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV will televise every game meaning no more regional shackles. There’s nothing worse at tourney time than missing a game you really want to watch because some weak sauce team resides within 1000 miles of you. Since CBS is contractually obligated to show you that game you have to wait until the six minute mark in the second half when they decide that a 45 point lead is insurmountable and they switch to the last five minutes of the game you wanted to watch.
This year also marks the first time the games will have staggered starts. Having four channels to spread the games across makes this easier but the games should have already had different start times. We’ve been living like cavemen all this time. Staggered starts would have prevented CBS from jumping around to show us the ending of three different games. Not that we missed a whole helluva lot but it’s something we COULD HAVE had so why not complain about it in hindsight?
These upgrades to the tournament definitely make it better but let’s be real. The tourney is about the brackets and gambling. Check out the NCAA Basketball Power Rankings provided by BetUS so you can start prepping your brackets. You’re still gonna lose to the lady picking teams by their colors or the homeless guy that finds Internet access but a little research never hurts.
NCAA games to have staggered starts [ESPN]
