On April 22, 2010, the
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reached a 14-year agreement, worth
US$10.8 billion, with CBS and the
Turner Broadcasting System to receive joint broadcast rights to the Division I men's college basketball tournament. This came after speculation that
ESPN would try to obtain the rights to future tournament games. The NCAA took advantage of an opt-out clause in its 1999 deal with CBS (which ran through 2013, even though the NCAA had the option of ending the agreement after the
2010 championship) to announce its intention to sign a new contract with CBS and
Turner Sports, a division of
WarnerMedia, which later was absorbed into
Warner Bros. Discovery. The new contract came amid serious consideration by the NCAA of expanding the tournament to 68 teams. The agreement, which runs through 2032 (extended from 2024 in 2016), stipulates that all games are available nationally. All First Four games air on
truTV. During the first and second rounds, a featured game in each time "window" is broadcast terrestrially on CBS (15 games), while all other games are shown on
TBS (12 games),
TNT (12 games) or truTV (nine games). Sweet 16 (regional semifinal) and Elite 8 (regional finals) games are split between CBS and TBS. In 2014 and 2015, Turner channels had exclusive rights to the Final Four (with standard coverage airing on TBS), and CBS broadcast the championship game. Since 2016, rights to the Final Four and championship game alternate between Turner and CBS; the 2016 tournament marked the first time that the national championship game was not broadcast on over-the-air television. The same number of "windows" are provided to CBS as before, although unlike with the previous schedule where all games in a window started within 10 minutes of each other, resulting in the possibility of multiple close games ending at once, the start times of games are staggered, with action lasting later in the night and fewer simultaneous games than in the previous format. As a result of the new deal, Mega March Madness, a
pay-per-view out-of-market sports package covering games in the tournament exclusive to
DirecTV, including a first and second round 'quad-box' channel showing all four games on one screen, was discontinued.
March Madness On Demand (now called
March Madness Live) remained unchanged, with Turner Interactive taking over management of both that service and NCAA.com at the start of 2011. The contract was expected to be signed after a review by the NCAA Board of Directors. In 2012, the service was changed; only games televised by CBS are available for free. All other games are available to
authenticated subscribers to the channels on participating television providers. The 2018 tournament, with TBS televising the national semifinals and final, is the first in which those particular games are subject to authentication restrictions. In 2018, March Madness Live added a new "whiparound" stream during the early rounds known as
Fast Break (similar in concept to
NFL RedZone and
ESPN Buzzer Beater), which features live look-ins, analysis, and highlights of simultaneous games. The CBS-WarnerMedia coverage formally begins with
The Selection Show—in which the teams participating in the tournament are announced, which follows CBS's coverage of the final game on
Selection Sunday. During the tournament itself, truTV broadcasts pre-game coverage,
Infiniti NCAA Tip-Off, while TBS and TruTV also air the post-game show
Inside March Madness. CBS also produces coverage of the
Reese's College All-Star Game (held on the afternoon of the Final Four at its venue), and the
Division II championship game, which are both aired as part of the
March Madness package. In 2016, CBS extended the selection show to a two-hour format; however, the new special was criticized by viewers for being too padded, while the full bracket was
leaked online shortly into the broadcast. In 2017, the selection show was shortened to a 90-minute format, promising to reveal the bracket in a more timely manner. In 2018, the selection show aired for the first time on TBS, with a studio audience and in a two-hour format, in which the entire field of the tournament would be revealed within the first 10 minutes. However, this involved initially revealing the teams in alphabetical order, and not the bracket proper—a decision which proved unpopular among critics and viewers. The show returned to an hour-long format on CBS the following year, and the 2020 edition was also expected to air on CBS. On April 16, 2016, the contract was extended to 2032 in an $8.8 billion deal. The current broadcasting arrangements, including alternating broadcasts of the semi-finals and final, will remain in force. The
2020 tournament was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. All technicians and utility staff who were expected to work the tournament were still paid, while CBS aired classic Final Four games on the afternoons of March 21, 22 and 29 as replacement programming. The addition of
NHL coverage affected coverage during the
2022 First Four on March 16. When the game between the
Boston Bruins and the
Minnesota Wild ran long, neither TBS (due to
AEW Dynamite) nor truTV (due to continuing coverage of the
Rutgers-
Notre Dame First Four game) were available for the start of the
Tampa Bay Lightning-
Seattle Kraken NHL game. The start of the hockey game was moved to a fourth channel,
HLN. In 2024, Max made all non-CBS tournament games available to stream under its B/R Sports label. Additionally, in addition to the Final Four and National Championship Game, truTV began simulcasting games aired on TBS from the second round on.
Team Streams Additionally, for 2014, truTV and TNT aired special "Teamcast" coverage of the Final Four alongside TBS's conventional coverage, which featured commentators and other guests representing the schools in each game. While the consortium planned to tap local radio announcers from each team for the teamcasts, the majority refused due to commitments in calling the games for their local radio networks. However, Turner Sports' senior vice president of production, Craig Barry, did expect such difficulties, and planned accordingly with the possibility of using talent from outlets associated with the team, general region, or their conference (such as
regional networks). The Teamcast feeds returned for the 2015 tournament, now branded as
Team Stream powered by Bleacher Report. For 2016, they were also used on the National Championship game. Among the contributors to the team streams in
2018 were physician and medical analyst
Sanjay Gupta (
Michigan) and actor/comedian (and former contributor to
Fox NFL Sunday)
Rob Riggle (
Kansas). As CBS prefers having a singular broadcast feed, the Team Stream feature is not used during any year that CBS holds the rights to the Final Four. The Team Stream broadcasts were quietly discontinued following the cancellation of the 2020 tournament; beginning with the
2022 tournament, truTV and TNT instead do a straight simulcast of the Final Four using the TBS network feed.
Other college basketball coverage from TNT Sports International coverage The same year that the CBS-Turner consortium took over,
ESPN International acquired rights to the tournament for broadcast outside of the United States as part of a $500 million agreement with ESPN to hold the rights to most other NCAA Division I championships. While most of the coverage is simulcast from the main U.S. feeds, coverage of the Final Four and national championship game uses a separate world feed produced by the
ESPN College Basketball staff; in
2013, the Final Four broadcasts on ESPN International were called by ESPN's lead commentators
Dan Shulman and
Dick Vitale (alternatively joined by
Brad Nessler for the second semi-final game). After Nessler left ESPN,
Sean McDonough became the primary play-by-play host, joined by ESPN college basketball analysts
Jay Bilas and Vitale.
TUDN broadcasts the tournament in
Mexico; CBS and Turner Sports also feature Spanish play-by-play in the United States via each network's
second audio program. ==Commentary==