Get set for a new way to view NCAA Tournament

Published 5:29 pm Sunday, March 13, 2011

ST. LOUIS — What at first glance might look like a complex maze of newfangled scheduling for the way the NCAA Tournament will be televised actually simplifies things and make all games available to the masses instead of having CBS control what viewers see.

The package that was sole property

of CBS for nearly two decades (minus what in recent years amounted to a play-in game), is being split four ways under a deal with Turner Broadcasting. Not only will CBS have telecasts, but Turner carries games on three of its outlets — TBS, TNT and TruTV. Thus every contest airs live nationally, in its entirety, unlike the old system in which CBS flipped from game to game.

“Once the viewer gets used to it, I think he’s going to like it,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said on a conference call this week hosted by CBS and Turner. “He’s going to be playing the role that CBS used to play . . . he’s got the (remote) control in his hands, he doesn’t have to rely on some CBS executive to decide what game he’s going to get switched to, he’ll switch himself. We’ve empowered the viewer.”

Although there will be “look-ins” at some timeouts, halftimes and between contests, gone are the cut-ins to buzzer-beaters during live action. Instead, the networks plan to heavily cross promote other games, even sometimes prodding viewers to go to another network for a more competitive contest. David Levy, who heads Turner Sports, said that might be unprecedented.

“I don’t think you’ve seen another network say to somebody, ‘Hey, they’ve got a great game on CBS now’ while Marv (Albert) is on TNT covering another game.”

The coziness arises because it’s a joint business venture. To that end, the networks will work in conjunction when they do scheduling for the first two weekends of the tourney after the bracket is announced Sunday. McManus said there is no pecking order as to who gets what games in the early rounds. (CBS still has all the regional finals and Final Four.)

“What’s important to us is that the cumulative audience is maximized,” he said.

CBS, TBS and TNT are well known but TruTV is the wild card. It formerly was called “Court TV” and will be used extensively through Friday, but for only once thereafter (on March 20).

Turner will some of its NBA broadcast personnel, including Albert and Kevin Harlan, Charles Barkley and Steve Kerr, in various roles. Some Turner announcers will appear on CBS and vice versa, including on studio shows.

For starters

To help get viewers familiarized with the new alignment, the coverage tips off on TruTV on Tuesday and Wednesday nights with an expanded version of what used to be a play-in game. The last four at-large teams to make the field plus the four lowest-regarded automatic qualifiers are relegated to what the NCAA calls the “first four” games but in reality is a qualifying session for the main bracket. There will be two contests each night and in the end one 11 seed, one 12 seed and two 16 seeds will be decided.

To add spice to opening-night, CBS’ lead team of Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg will call the action and be joined by Turner analyst Kerr — who also will work the Final Four and gets an indoctrination with his new partners Saturday at the Big Ten tourney.

There will continue to be free on-line access to all tourney telecasts, at mmod.com.

The bottom line

This CBS-Turner alliance wasn’t formed simply because CBS decided it was time to make all the games available nationally. The partnership was formed to fend off a likely bid by ESPN to grab the whole package, as it has done with the BCS and other events in recent years. ESPN has a key revenue source — substantial subscriber fees — that traditional networks such as CBS lack. The CBS-Turner deal pays the NCAA $10.8 billion through 2024.

“We realized very quickly at CBS that we couldn’t bid for this just as an over-the-air broadcaster,” McManus said. “It was a huge factor.’