The NCAA Tournament is staying put an additional eight years, and with no immediate changes to the Final Four scheduling format.
CBS and Turner Sports have agreed to an eight-year media rights extension to continue broadcasting the NCAA men’s basketball tournament through 2032, it was announced Tuesday. The networks’ original deal with the NCAA, which was signed in 2010, was set to expire in 2024. By the end of the contract, the NCAA Tournament will have aired on CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV for 22 consecutive seasons.
News of the contract extension was originally reported by Deadspin. Sports Business Journal was first to report last year that CBS, Turner and the NCAA had begun discussions.
Under the extended deal, CBS and TBS will continue to alternate coverage of the Final Four each year. TBS will now have the semifinals and championship games in eight more seasons — 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030 and 2032. There had been indications that CBS and Turner would look into changing the schedule to ensure that the title game would air on CBS each year, with Sports Business Journal reporting on Monday that the networks would discuss that possibility in one of their annual post-tournament reviews.
While the schedule will remain the same, the rights fees will most certainly not. The eight additional years of the contract are worth $8.8 billion, nearly matching the value of the original 14-year deal signed in 2010 ($10.8B). According to Sports Business Daily, some of that money will be applied to the remaining years of the original contract, as the annual rights fees were set to “flatten” by 2024 (SBD, 4/12).
Turner Sports currently pays 70 percent of the NCAA Tournament rights fee, again per Sports Business Daily, and there was no indication that would change under the new deal.
The NCAA Tournament now joins the Olympics as major sports television properties locked up into the ’30s. Outside of those events, the longest-running television deals are FIFA’s agreement with Fox Sports and Telemundo (through 2026) and the NBA’s soon-to-begin television deal with Turner Sports and ESPN/ABC (through 2025).
(Tue. news from Turner Sports, Sports Business Daily)
