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The NCAA is poised to expand the men’s basketball tournament from 65 to 68 teams starting next year after reaching a 14-year, $10.8 billion television rights deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting that will allow every game to be shown live on one of four networks.
The three-team expansion is much more modest than 80- and 96-team proposals the NCAA outlined just a few weeks ago at the Final Four. The move coincides with the new, 14-year broadcasting arrangement that interim NCAA president Jim Isch said will provide an average of $740 million to its conferences and schools each year.
The NCAA’s agreement with CBS and Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System Inc. runs from 2011 through 2024. It means that every game next March will be shown live — on CBS, TBS, TNT or truTV — for the first time in the tournament’s 73-year history.
Next year, everything through the second round will be shown nationally on the four networks. CBS and Turner, an entity of Time Warner Inc., will split coverage of the regional semifinal games, while CBS will retain coverage of the regional finals, the Final Four and the championship game through 2015.
Beginning in 2016, coverage of the regional finals will be split by CBS and Turner; the Final Four and the championship game will alternate every year between CBS and TBS. Under the agreement, the NCAA and CBSSports.com will again provide live streaming video of games, though Turner secured rights for any player it develops.
Sources: [URL=”http://www.espn.com”]ESPN[/URL]
I really like this expansion, much more so than the proposed 96-team tournament, which would have allowed many teams that did not deserve to make the tournament, likely make it. This also means more money will be earned by conferences and teams that participate in the tournament.
