Friday, March 23, 2012

NCAA Does a Good Thing

This is the second season the NCAA is televising every men’s basketball tournament game to every television market in the country. This is a good thing.

The cynic in me says that the organization is doing it for the money. But even if that is the reason, it’s still a good thing.

Back in the old days, CBS controlled the TV rights. If you wanted to watch an out-of-market game, you basically had two choices: subscribe to DIRECTV or go to a sports bar or restaurant that offered the NCAA package. I remember going to a restaurant one time to watch NC State. Another time, I went to a cousin’s house to watch a California CBS station he had on his satellite that was carry the game I wanted to watch.

The new system carries games over four channels. You can watch any game and also flip back-and-forth between channels. It’s a beautiful thing.

The only problems are knowing what channels the games are on, what channel number on your particular system and what time in your time zone the games air.

But now with the Sweet 16 we are down to two networks: CBS and TBS. Once there are only eight teams remaining, CBS takes over.

This television package makes the beauty of March madness more beautiful.

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