College basketball’s national champion will still be crowned on CBS the next two years, but the national semifinals will air on TBS.
Turner Sports and CBS announced Tuesday the 2014 and 2015 NCAA Tournament National Semifinals will air on TBS. CBS will continue to air the National Championship Game in those years.
The move would seem to be a compromise. TBS clearly wanted to get into the Final Four early, but one imagines that CBS did not want to give up a championship game. As a result, the networks will split the Final Four over the next two years before going into an every-other-year rotation starting in 2016.
Under the CBS/Turner NCAA Tournament deal, TBS has rights to the entire Final Four — including the National Championship Game — every other year starting in 2016.
TBS will also begin televising part of the Elite Eight next season, another provision of the deal that was not supposed to kick in until 2016.
Sports Business Journal originally reported in March that TBS would begin airing Final Four coverage next year.
(Tuesday’s news from Turner Sports/CBS)
