Post by Skaggs on Mar 11, 2011 11:23:04 GMT -5
Best seat in my house
NCAA like you’ve not seen it before
By PETE DOUGHERTY, Times Union Staff writer
NEW YORK — Eliminate the words “flex” and “whiparound” from your NCAA Basketball Tournament vocabulary. You, the viewer, will be in control.
For the first time every game of “March Madness” will be available to a national TV audience, or at least to those with cable or satellite.
The new 14-year, $10.8 billion deal between the NCAA and television partners CBS and Turner Sports assures that.
The days of relying on a producer in a New York studio to switch you to the most intriguing game are over. Those decisions are up to those in charge of the remote control.
“Everyone’s used to seeing the NCAA Basketball Championship on CBS,” said Sean McManus, news and sports president at the network, which has carried the tournament since 1982. “You sit down, you watch all the games, we switch back and forth. It’s a totally new concept this year, and one that’s going to take some getting used to for the viewer.”
For the first week of the tournament, four networks will have games: CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. The latter three are Turnerowned cable networks. With the addition of three teams, expanding the NCAA field to 68, there will be Tuesday and Wednesday doubleheaders on TruTV.
When the traditional first round (now called the second round) is played Thursday and Friday, each of the four networks will have four games on both days.
The biggest change is whatever network is assigned to a game will stay with that until the end. There will be no switching out, or “flexing,” to other games. Even live “look-ins” at other games will be limited.
“It may well be we’ve got to turn around a buzzer beater, and you’ll see it a minute later when there’s a break in the action,” McManus said. “They’ll be some look-ins. There will be no flexing.
“We’re not going to take an audience from this game to another game, because if you want to watch the other game, you’re going to see across the top the other game say, ‘TBS.’ If you want to watch the Syracuse game on TBS, you’ve got to do what CBS used to do.
You’ve got to go like that (clicking the remote), and you can watch the whole game.”
It’s a rare exercise in cooperation between two large media companies. Part of the agreement will have CBS and Turner alternating carriage of the Final Four, but that won’t begin until 2014.
“Thursday will be a learning day for everyone,” said David Levy, president of sales, distribution and sports for TBS, Inc. “Ultimately, it’s an incredible opportunity for the consumer. The consumer can now be the producer.”
Both companies will supply announcers. Greg Gumbel (CBS) and Ernie Johnson (TNT) will share host duties in the New York studios, working with rotating analysts, including the unpredictable Charles Barkley.
“I met Ernie for the first time last week down in Atlanta,” Gumbel said. “We were talking about this thing, and we said, ‘How do you think this thing is going to go?’ We were very honest when we said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
▶ Pete Dougherty is the Times Union’s sports TV/radio columnist. Reach him at 454-5416 or pdougherty@timesunion.com. Visit his blog at blog.timesunion.com/sportsmedia
NCAA SELECTION SUNDAY When: ■ 6 p.m. Sunday
TV: ■ CBS-6
NCAA like you’ve not seen it before
By PETE DOUGHERTY, Times Union Staff writer
NEW YORK — Eliminate the words “flex” and “whiparound” from your NCAA Basketball Tournament vocabulary. You, the viewer, will be in control.
For the first time every game of “March Madness” will be available to a national TV audience, or at least to those with cable or satellite.
The new 14-year, $10.8 billion deal between the NCAA and television partners CBS and Turner Sports assures that.
The days of relying on a producer in a New York studio to switch you to the most intriguing game are over. Those decisions are up to those in charge of the remote control.
“Everyone’s used to seeing the NCAA Basketball Championship on CBS,” said Sean McManus, news and sports president at the network, which has carried the tournament since 1982. “You sit down, you watch all the games, we switch back and forth. It’s a totally new concept this year, and one that’s going to take some getting used to for the viewer.”
For the first week of the tournament, four networks will have games: CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. The latter three are Turnerowned cable networks. With the addition of three teams, expanding the NCAA field to 68, there will be Tuesday and Wednesday doubleheaders on TruTV.
When the traditional first round (now called the second round) is played Thursday and Friday, each of the four networks will have four games on both days.
The biggest change is whatever network is assigned to a game will stay with that until the end. There will be no switching out, or “flexing,” to other games. Even live “look-ins” at other games will be limited.
“It may well be we’ve got to turn around a buzzer beater, and you’ll see it a minute later when there’s a break in the action,” McManus said. “They’ll be some look-ins. There will be no flexing.
“We’re not going to take an audience from this game to another game, because if you want to watch the other game, you’re going to see across the top the other game say, ‘TBS.’ If you want to watch the Syracuse game on TBS, you’ve got to do what CBS used to do.
You’ve got to go like that (clicking the remote), and you can watch the whole game.”
It’s a rare exercise in cooperation between two large media companies. Part of the agreement will have CBS and Turner alternating carriage of the Final Four, but that won’t begin until 2014.
“Thursday will be a learning day for everyone,” said David Levy, president of sales, distribution and sports for TBS, Inc. “Ultimately, it’s an incredible opportunity for the consumer. The consumer can now be the producer.”
Both companies will supply announcers. Greg Gumbel (CBS) and Ernie Johnson (TNT) will share host duties in the New York studios, working with rotating analysts, including the unpredictable Charles Barkley.
“I met Ernie for the first time last week down in Atlanta,” Gumbel said. “We were talking about this thing, and we said, ‘How do you think this thing is going to go?’ We were very honest when we said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
▶ Pete Dougherty is the Times Union’s sports TV/radio columnist. Reach him at 454-5416 or pdougherty@timesunion.com. Visit his blog at blog.timesunion.com/sportsmedia
NCAA SELECTION SUNDAY When: ■ 6 p.m. Sunday
TV: ■ CBS-6
