NCAA Final Four to Move to TBS in 2014
By Brad Rowland
In the world of television rights for sporting events, “March Madness” is near the top of the food chain. CBS has paid handsomely (read: in the billions) for full access to the tournament, and in recent years, they’ve partnered with Turner Sports to televise every single game of the three-week tournament in its entirety.
On Tuesday, the two companies announced plans to show the two “Final Four” games (played on the Saturday before the national championship follows on Monday) on TBS for the first time. For the 2014 and 2015 tournaments, the cable network will hold the rights to Saturday’s double-header, with the championship game staying with CBS in both years.
The second piece of the move is two additional games (half of the 4 regional final games) will also move to TBS as part of the deal. In the original contract, CBS and TBS (Turner’s #1 network) were scheduled to begin alternating full broadcasts of the Final Four festivities in 2016, but Turner reportedly exercised an option to move that process up to 2014.
For the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t affect the viewing public in a tremendous way. The great majority of the tournament is currently shown on cable, so with four games moving in that direction, the impact should be relatively minimal. With that said, it is a new day for the “broadcast” networks, and this is yet another sign of the shift to cable.