With the sports streaming market still relatively chaotic and fragmented, custom integration clients might want to be guided where they can watch this year’s NCAA March Madness, which tips off this week.
Maybe your company has a newsletter for you to fire off some quick information for your hoops-loving customers so they know where and when they can watch their March Madness brackets on their big smart TVs, computers, and mobile and/or streaming devices.
Perhaps you’ve already programmed certain streaming services that include shortcut buttons to those with sports streaming content and just need to remind clients those are available to simplify the college basketball viewing Madness.
Where to Watch March Madness on Broadcast
For the past several years, CBS Sports and sister networks from TNT Sports (TBS, TNT, and TruTV) have been the four places to watch into the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The tourney’s First Four doubleheader games that take place starting at 6:40 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 18 and Wednesday, March 19 can be found exclusively on TruTV.
On the cable broadcast side, customers can simply search their local station guide, make sure those channels are favorited, and check the programming schedule. Times and channels for all the games is listed here.
Where is it Being Streamed?
On the digital sports streaming front, customers can watch the March Madness games on chief platforms Paramount+ and Max. The former will air the CBS contests and TBS, TNT, and truTV will stream live on Max.
Other sports streaming options for the tournament include platforms Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV STREAM, YouTube TV, Fubo, and Sling Orange. Of those, all except Sling offer free trials, in case customers want to test out the services; Sling Orange has a free preview for the First Four games in Dayton.
Other Ways to Watch
Meanwhile, as it has done for many years now, NCAA.com will stream every one of the 67 men’s tournament games and show them on their NCAA March Madness Live app.
If customers have DirecTV or Dish satellite service instead of cable, they can rotate between their local CBS station and the trio of TNT Sports networks airing March Madness.
For those, DirecTV customers can find TNT, TruTV, and TBS on channels 245, 246, and 247, respectively. On Dish, they are on 138 (TNT), 139 (TBS), and 242 (TruTV).
Each network hosts doubleheaders in the first two rounds of March Madness on Thursday-Sunday, March 20-23. The first round March 20-21 features afternoon and evening doubleheaders on all four CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV.
Women’s March Madness on ESPN & ABC Networks
The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, which starts with its First Four games one day after the Men’s March Madness commences, will be airing on ESPN networks and ABC.
The full women’s tourney broadcast schedule can be found here.
ESPNU has the Wednesday, March 19 First Four games, while ESPN2 will show the Thursday night games, starting at 7 p.m. each day.
Additionally, ESPNNews will broadcast some of the women’s tournament first-round games Friday and Saturday in addition to ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU.
On DirecTV, those are 206 (ESPN), 207 (ESPNNews), 208 (ESPNU), 209 (ESPN2). On Dish, it’s 140 (ESPN), 141 (ESPNU), 142 (ESPNNews), and 143 (ESPN2).
As the tournament moves past the opening rounds, ABC joins the mix for the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Championship matchups. The Final Four and title games will also be on ESPN+ streaming service.
Whether it’s the men’s, women’s or both tournaments, your clients will thank you – especially the ones with multi-views on a single display for all the action simultaneously.
