NCAA Tournament Expanding ”¦ to 68

Duke will be the final champion of a 65-team tournament field. (AP Images)

The NCAA has reached a mammoth new television deal with CBS and Turner Sports, with the big news being that the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament will indeed expand in 2011 – but only by three teams to 68 instead of the rumored 96-team field. Bodog will have 2010-11 NCAA basketball futures odds soon.

Obviously this should mean that there will now be four play-in games instead of one, and it probably lessens the chance of a No. 16 ever upsetting a No. 1 seed because of the quick turnarounds those No. 16s would have to make after playing the Tuesday before the Big Dance starts two days later. I am guessing this also means that all four No. 1 seeds would thus play on the first Friday of the tournament to give the play-in winners an extra day to prepare.

This new deal, which is worth $10.8 billion over 14 years, will have to be approved by the Division I Board of Directors, which is considered a formality. It will also affect where you watch the games, because starting next season the first- and second-round NCAA Tournament games will be televised on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV (what’s that?) – thus every game will be shown live on some network for the first time in the history of the tournament. CBS and the Turner networks will split coverage of the Sweet 16 games, and CBS will televise the region finals and Final Four. Beginning in 2016, coverage of the region finals will be split by CBS and Turner, with the Final Four and the national championship game alternating every year between CBS and TBS.

That’s quite a coup for cable station TBS in getting the national title game as part of the package. CBS Sports has broadcast the entire NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship since 1982. This year’s championship game between underdog Butler and champion Duke generated the CBS’ highest viewership in 13 years. NCAA March Madness on Demand will continue to be launched from NCAA.com and CBSSports.com. Turner has also secured the rights for any Time Warner digital property. It's fairly shocking that ESPN didn't win this bid or at least a part of it.

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