Thursday, April 22, 2010

THE BASKETBALL QUADRUPLECAST: There's a bunch of interesting stuff in this press release about the NCAA's new TV contract for the Division I Basketball Tournament, but the two big things are:
  • Starting next year, rather than CBS's "flip from game to game" coverage, it seems all games will be shown in their entirety on four different networks--CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV (f/k/a/ CourtTV). Unclear on how exactly the games will be divided among the networks. Beginning in 2016, the Final Four will air in alternate years on CBS and TBS.
  • Next year's tourney will expand from 65 to 68 teams, I assume by adding a play-in game to the 3 other regions that no one will really care about.

5 comments:

  1. 68 is better than 96, so, phew.

    In the past, ESPN has had the tv rights to the 64/65 play-in game.  What's yet unknown (to me, at least) is whether (a) ESPN retains the rights to all four preliminary games and (b) whether they'll continue to be for the #16 seeds, or whether perhaps  they'll be "bubble games" between non-conference-winners for the four #12 seeds, say.

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  2. Meghan3:31 PM

    So TBS is becoming more of a major player if it's alternating the Final Four with CBS.  Perhaps Conan made the right decision after all?

    Oh, and I hate basketball, so it's immaterial to me how many play and on what channels.

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  3. If Skip Caray is associated in any way with the torunament, I will boycott by spending all twelve hours on the first round Thursday/Friday looping the Shatner video above.

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  4. looking italian9:01 PM

    The three extra games have to draw from the bottom of the auto qualifiers.  If you don't set a floor for the number of at-large participants, there's no disincentive for the lower level D-I teams to create new conferences that grab more automatic bids.  Substituting 4-8 teams significantly worse than, say, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, for teams around what currently is the at-large "cut line" would make the first round a lot less interesting.

    I find the celebration over nixing "96" pretty ironic.  The formation of four 16-team superconferences (which, in turn, would split from the rest of the NCAA) is, like, a billion times more threatening to the "perfection" of the NCAA Tournament than a 96 team field would be.  For a month or two, most signs pointed toward increasing to "96."  Not going through with it at the critical moment?  That tells me that the superconference split is a legitimate possibility.

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  5. RRamar3:17 PM

    If TBS finds a way to bring Skip Carey back for the NCAA Tournament it would be must-see television.

    Chip Carey, however, would be a disaster.

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