Better March Madness?

Since we are in the middle of college basketball's finest three weeks, March Madness, I felt that I should take some time to reflect on how the media presents the biggest three weeks in college sports. The CBS coverage on the national college basketball tournament is unmatched. They have the rights to every game in the tournament, and they constantly are switching games to catch all the excitement and madness that happens. But couldn't it be better?

If CBS had more alternate channels, like the way NBC has MSNBC, USA, and CNBC, they could cover every game in its entirety instead of showing different games it different regions. Yes, CBS does show the endings of just about every game, especially if the score is close with little time remaining, but I would rather have the luxury of watching any game I want. CBS has a monopoly on the NCAA college basketball tournament, and when a monopoly is present, especially in sports, it is never a good thing.

NBC has a monopoly on the Olympics, but as I eluded to earlier, they can afford to because they have so many channels and the viewer can watch any event that he or she wants. CBS tries to allow the viewer to have this same right by having "March Madness On Demand," in which viewers with access to the Internet can watch any game they want online for free. But this is not perfect. There have been many reports of problems with viewing the games online. Personally, I have experienced problems with attempting to view the game online as well. Sometimes, the connection can cause problems and the game can freeze up or have to buffer. Also, the games on the Internet appear to be behind the actual game broadcasted on CBS. CBS puts the scores of all the games at the top of the screen of the game you are watching. Every time I am watching the game on the Internet the score at the top of the screen on CBS changes before either team scores. So if you are simultaneously watching CBS and March Madness on Demand, you will now what is going to happen in the online game before it actually happens. Every sport fan knows that if you know what is going to happen before you watch it happen, watching sports is not fun.

Something must be done about the production of the March Madness tournament. If NBC can show everything on 5 different channels for the Olympics, than CBS should have to do the same for the college basketball tournament. If they fail to do so, than the NCAA should refuse to accept their bid to the rights of the tournament after the current contract expires.