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March Madness May Move to Cable

Posted by srr50 on December 8th, 2009 under Basketball

Last year the NCAA looked on with envy as the BCS, despite a down economy, hit pay dirt with a $500 million dollar deal to move their games off of broadcast TV to ESPN.

Now the organization is considering jumping out of its $6 billion dollar deal for the NCAA Basketball Tournament with CBS, expanding the tournament to 96 teams and moving it to cable as well.

CBS has been the home of March Madness since 1982, and won’t give up the elite event without a fight. The 11-year deal is schedule to end in 2013, but the NCAA has an opt out option after this year. The deal is backloaded — over $2 Billion on the pact is due over the next three years — but some folks in the NCAA think expanding the tournament to 96 teams would increase the content and make it more appealing to broadcast and cable entities.

The idea would be to give the top 32 teams a first round bye, and have an a week of essentially elimination contests.


Currently, the NCAA collects 90% of its yearly revenue from the CBS contract for March Madness.

Leaving $2 Billion on the table is a gamble, and the NCAA will take time to study the situation, at least through the coming summer. But they look at their BCS brethren who increased their rights fees by 50% with the move to cable and they dream of doing the same.

The timing is right to for ESPN to make a move. Comcast, the largest cable provider in the country, just purchased NBC Universal and has made noises of using various cable outlets to form a new sports channel to challenge ESPN for major events. However, legal issues are expected to keep the purchase from going through for almost a year, which will give ESPN time to cement whatever deal they can strike with the NCAA.

CBS, which acquired digital rights to NCAA events with its $6 Billion deal, has used that leverage to make the March Madness profitable. They no doubt will be more than willing to make the NCAA an offer they hope they can’t refuse.

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16 Responses

  1. Mike said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    Currently, the NCAA collects 90% of its yearly revenue from the CBS contract for March Madness.

    Which explains why the BCS is here to stay. Multiple contracts with multiple broadcasters for multiple conferences. Fuck, the $EC(and CBS) probably makes more in a slow football season off of ONE conference than ABC/NCAA make off March Madness.

    I’ll take March Madness any day.

  2. Mike said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    I closed that fucking italics God damnit.

  3. Groundhog Day said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

    Why even have a regular season? College Basketball is turning into the NBA; an absolute snoozer.

  4. SL Xpress said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    Not that it matters one whit, but it would suck if the event was moved to 96 teams.

    Add 3 more play in games if expansion is deemed necessary (and frankly, I think it could be a win-win since those participants will have a shot at a tournament win that way), but the 64 slots to begin the event with is just right.

  5. srr50 said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    SLX: I agree, but it is the American Way to take a good thing and SuperSize it until it is a bloated, grotesque image of itself.

  6. Groundhog Day said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    These back to back to years are amazing about who finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Heisman.

    1981 Marcus Allen, Herschel Walker, Jim McMahon
    1982 Herschel Walker, John Elway, Eric Dickerson

    I will start with 1990 on who won and who should have won or had a damn good argument.

    1990 Ty Detmer-Should have been The Rocket
    1991 Desmond Howard-tough to argue, bad year
    1992 Gino Torretta-Marshall Faulk
    1993 Charlie Ward-tough to argue
    1994 Rashaan Salaam-Steve McNair thanks Texas
    1995 Eddie George-Tommy Frazier was great too
    1996 Danny Wuerfell-Jake Plummer(undefeated ASU team to Rose Bowl)
    1997 Charles Woodson-Peyton Manning though I’m good with Woodson
    1998 Ricky Williams
    1999 Ron Dayne-Michael Vick (undefeated Vtech team to NC game with FSU)
    2000 Chris Weinke-Drew Brees (led Purdue to Rose Bowl)
    2001 Eric Crouch-Terrible year perhaps ken Dorsey
    2002 Carson Palmer
    2003 Jason White-Larry Fitzgerald
    2004 Matt Leinart-tough to argue but Adrian Peterson was awesome frosh
    2005 Reggie Bush-Vince Young
    2006 Troy Smith-Darren McFadden
    2007 Tim Tebow- could argue Darren McFadden
    2008 Sam Bradford- could argue Colt

  7. Groundhog Day said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    Wrong post. Sorry about that. Continue on talking about super size and how they can further make college athletics like boring professional sports.

  8. cazadores said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    Not sure I care about who has the contract, but expanding the field is just plain stupid. Smacks of unrestrained greed. A wise man told me once, “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered”. The NCAA better be careful.

  9. Groundhog Day said:

    December 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    The tourney is already oversaturated and overcommercialized. It’s no accident that the tourney has gone to the pod system to fill arenas. Also, since the NCAA chose to have regionals in football stadiums the lack of intimacy and atmosphere has contributed to how boring the tourney has become. I went to the Mich State/Texas game last year in Reliant and vowed I would never go to another NCAA tourney game again. This after seeing great tournament games in 15k seat arenas for years. The tourney has changed and it’s certainly for the worse.

    For all the college football proponents be careful what you wish for. College Football is the best sport and product out there today and there is a reason for that and it’s really not even close.

  10. Bob in Houston said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 7:08 am

    I went to the Mich State/Texas game last year in Reliant and vowed I would never go to another NCAA tourney game again.

    That game was at the Toyota Center.

  11. Bob in Houston said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 7:16 am

    SLX, I share your distaste for expansion by 32, but if they did it, we finally would see some games between the lower-level BCS conference teams and the mid- and low major heroes.

    At 64, they are only three games from including everybody. The argument has been that the conference tournaments serve as those early rounds, and I find that hard to dispute.

  12. Groundhog Day said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 7:53 am

    Bob,

    I’m sorry I meant to say two years ago when TX played Stanford and Memphis played Mich State. Time flies. And yes, I vowed I would never go back.

  13. The Wood Shed said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 8:51 am

    So, let me get this straight: we can’t have an 8-team playoff in a sport that plays12 regular season games, but we can have a 96-team playoff in a sport that plays 30 regular season games?

  14. Bob in Houston said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 9:37 am

    GD: Figured. I’m going to the UNC-Texas game next week. We’ll see what that is like.

    I once thought that there was no way I would pass up a FF in Houston. Now… eh. I want to see the games, not just be there.

    Wood Shed: Difference is control of the money. NCAA has control of the basketball revenue, and right now, the BCS controls most of the football postseason money.

    The NCAA can’t arbitrarily impose a football playoff without risking the loss of the BCS conferences from its organization, which would make its current operation impossible and destroy the basketball tournament brand.

  15. Sugarpants said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 9:49 am

    Do basketball players literally hit each other so hard they try to knock each other out of the game?

  16. czarcw said:

    December 9th, 2009 at 11:00 am

    I’ve never found a satisfactory answer to this: What does the NCAA *do* with 2 billion dollars? Surely, it doesn’t need that much money to oversee college athletics.

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