When TBS televises college basketball’s national championship for the first time this year, TNT and TruTV will be alongside to provide ‘homer’ coverage.
According to NCAA.com, Turner Sports will provide “Team Stream” coverage of the NCAA Tournament National Championship Game in April. The primary national telecast will air on TBS, while coverage tailored to the participating teams will air on TNT and TruTV.
As has been the case the past two years, Turner Sports will also provide “Team Stream” coverage of the Final Four national semifinals. Thus far, the home team telecasts have been well-received by those who understood the concept and blasted by fans who mistook the purposefully biased coverage for the straight national broadcast.
The confusion will no doubt be heightened this year, as an audience accustomed to watching the title game on CBS searches for the right telecast.
The “Team Stream” coverage is one of a handful of changes to this year’s NCAA Tournament schedule. On Thursday, CBS and Turner Sports announced that the Selection Show will expand to two hours, airing from 5:30-7:30 PM ET. In the Elite Eight, CBS will air the Saturday games and TBS the Sunday games, the latter of which will move from the afternoon to the evening. The schedule is available here.
The biggest change of all is that the title game will air on cable. This year begins an every-other-year rotation in which TBS and CBS trade the Final Four. CBS has all three games next year, Turner Sports has them again in 2018, and so on.
(News from NCAA.com, Turner Sports)
