Interesting article...if we go to war during the NCAA Tournament, CBS will move it's tourney coverage to MTV. I'd love to see some confused kid wonder why some "championship game" is pre-empting Road Rules.

The Link

--HOOK EM--

Saw this mentioned in the paper today--either MTV, VH1 or TNN could air some games if CBS News decides they have to cover the war.

That is an interesting fact. I know some of my friends would not be to happy with college basketball taking over their favorite network but I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.

As long as the NCAA Tournament is broadcast somewhere I don't care! (However, a War is going to wreck my Soaps!). :mad:

It would be interesting to see the NCAA hoops on MTV and VH1. It isn't a bad idea at all. I think I would tune into MTV if the Final Four was playing. They would make it interesting for people to watch.

Allen

Wouldn't it be more logical to televise the games on Viacom owned UPN? UPN has no national news programming, and people without cable will still be able to watch the games. Although MTV and VH1 have diluted their identity in recent years, it still reminds me of when our local all news radio station broadcast Phillies games. When they advertise "all news, all the time" and the listener grows to depend on depend on traffic/transi on the 2's, etc., having a 3-4 hour ball game interferes with the reliability of having this radio station to turn to whenever for news, weather, traffic. Wonder if MTV and VH1 viewers will feel the same?

Sadly not everyone in the country has UPN either. Some cities choose not to carry it. Weird but true. So its more likely some people have MTV more than they would UPN. Or any of the other Viacom networks for that matter.

I think they could show the games on UPN as well as MTV. Between the two, they'd get close to full coverage throughout the country. Or they could just move CBS News to UPN...."This is a special report on the Iraq War. Now, here's Dan Rather and Buffy the Vampire Slayer." wink

CBS is supposedly in talks with ESPN about switching coverage of the games over to them -- as a last resort. According to a NYTimes article, they have ruled out MTV and VH1, favoring instead TNN, Nickelodeon and TV Land. The major problem with those is they cannot "regionalize" -- someone watching a game in Boston on TV Land would see the same game as someone in Omaha.

Article here.

Here's the latest from ESPN.com:

I read today that the local CBS station here decided to put the games on the UPN station (also owned by Viacom) if needed. Whether this means the games involving Penn and St. Joe's or other games, I don't know.

The words "check your local listings" seem to apply. wink

The early games are on ESPN. From this link at ESPN.com:



[ March 20, 2003, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

While the Thursday-Friday games are being televised on ESPN, I have yet to hear how the Saturday-Sunday dilemma will be resolved, considering that ESPN and ESPN2 apparently is still going to televise EVERY game of the NCAA WOMEN'S tournament (based upon their ENDLESS promos for the womens tourney that are appearing during every break in action during the mens games)....perhaps ESPN is contractually obligated to do so but if this means that the FAR more popular MEN'S tournament is relegated to MTV, TTN, TVLand eek! or one of the other lesser-known CBS/Viacom owned networks, that would be a travesty for the American sports viewer -- and I'm saying this despite the fact that it won't affect me in the slightest since I purchased the entire "March Madness package" from DirecTV which gives me every game live regardless of which primary network it airs on.

I doubt CBS will change their programming emphasis in the next 48 hours and it should be interesting to hear of their decision regarding this weekend's games, when the viewership is typically much higher, at least compared with Thursday and Friday afternoons....could it be that the reason why we have yet to hear any announcement about this is due to the fact that CBS Sports President Sean McManus (son of Jim McKay) has yet to make a decision about this weekends programming -- is he going to wait until Saturday morning to decide or does he believe the war will end in 48 hours?

[ March 20, 2003, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: gamecock ]

CBS appears to be waiting until last minute to make a final decision (at least publicly) on any of the NCAA games. Their website didn't reflect the move to ESPN of today's first games until around 12 Noonish, and second games until after 2 PM. It appears that they aren't deciding (or announcing) about an hour before the games if CBS is going to televise or not. As of this writing (6:30 PM), CBS's website still has nothing about not televising tonight's games on CBS. I guess that way you'll be glued to CBS News, waiting for announcement. I still think if they move this weekend's games to another cable outlet, they should also be shown on Viacom owned UPN, for non-cable subscribers. As

I've been up and down the channels looking for the Stanford/San Diego game and it's no where to be found. Dan Rather did just make a statement in closing that the games will be on CBS tonight (pending any breaking newsworthy details I would assume).

I think I may follow suit with Brother Gamecock and buy the Direct TV package.

Breaking news....the tournament's on CBS!

I saw the tail end of Stanford--San Diego on CBS, and I sincerely hope they show all of tonight's games. Because I feel like venting right now, here's why:

1. I am very opposed to the war, so I obviously don't want to watch it.
2. I am a huge college hoops fan so I specifically took today and tomorrow as vacation days from my job so I could do nothing but veg here in my apartment and watch basketball all day long.
3. I used to get ESPN, but I don't now and haven't for the past month.
4. And after roughly two years of drought here around Denver, we got slammed with about 3 feet of snow, so I'm essentially stranded here, my car buried in a parking lot about a half mile away, and couldn't even go to some straight bar or the ESPN zone downtown to watch games other than the ones CBS paid all those billions of dollars for the exclusive rights to.

I spent most of today moping around (I took two naps), because I didn't get excited at all watching the scores update on the internet like I do watching the games. And with just about every other channel showing the same neon green war images, wouldn't it make sense to provide an oasis from all that for people who are sick of it or sports fans? Or, as Helen Lovejoy on "The Simpsons" often says, "won't someone PLEASE think of the children?"

Ok, there, I feel a little better now getting that out.

Homr, sorry to hear about the way the day has panned out. If the games end up on ESPN tomorrow and you're unable to 'dig out' from all the snow, try watching online here. I don't know what kind of connection you have but maybe it would be worth the try.

homr, I'm sorry about the way the early part of the day went for you as well....as I mentioned on another thread, these first two days of the tournament are two of the best sports days of the year IMHO and I know a lot of huge hoops fans like yourself don't have access to all the cable stations, even ESPN, so just getting the scores on the internet does not provide nearly the same level of enjoyment....as I'm sure you realize, CBS is televising tonight's action but the next three days is apparently still up in the air so we'll have to wait and see what network the games end up on (especially Saturday and Sunday when ESPN and ESPN2 are committed to the women's tournament)....also, as Theo mentioned, www.ncaasports.com has been heavily advertised on ESPN as the web site where many live games can be viewed....hope that helps a little and that your bracket is in good shape so far.

As for the three feet of snow that you got there in Colorado, I can relate to how miserable that is -- the last remnants of our 26 inch storm from February is finally melting out here....spring can't arrive soon enough which is another reason why I so eagerly anticipate March Madness and baseball opening day every year.

Thanks, Theo and gamecock. My mood improved when the night games started , since they've stuck to the games and have kept Dan Rather to a minimum (and he sort of seems pissed about it). I also appreciate the link(s); not sure it would work with slow-speed connection but I may try it if CBS repeats tomorrow what they did today (which wouldn't surprise me).

Theo, if you're able to get Canadian channels where you are, Rogers Sportsnet (East, West & Pacific) are showing the NCAA Tournament, using all the live feeds and game commentary from CBS!... BUT instead of going to commercials during timeouts, they often switch to another game that is in progress. Usually they will choose the most exciting game on hand, and will flip-flop back and forth from game to game.

Of course, this might be VERY annoying if you want to follow your favourite team for a whole game, but I found it fabulous! I felt more into every game, seeing the action unfold in real time, and made it real fun to follow the brackets! To me, this is MUCH BETTER than CBS's regional coverage!

Last night one of the later games was just ending, and there was still one game going on--Tulsa/Dayton--with a lot of time left. But instead of switching to that game the play-by-play announcer just said "goodnight" and without even going back to Greg Gumbel in the studio, they showed a couple of commercials and then the local news came on!

War coverage notwithstanding, isn't CBS going to show the end of all the games anymore? Pathetic.