March Madness begins on Thursday afternoon, and this year, it is possible to stream every single game without a television — but it’s complicated.
As cord-cutting proliferates, there are now more options for streaming live sports than ever before. This year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament is a good example: There are ways to stream, but it requires using multiple platforms or services, and in most cases requires cable authentication.
Leading up to the final, 67-game bracket (63 games plus four play-in games), many different digital partners have rights to stream some games. NeuLion, for example, a back-end streaming video company that powers video for the UFC, has direct deals with conferences and networks such as the BTN (Big Ten Network), so it streams the Big Ten tournament, which leads into March Madness. But once the bracket begins, NeuLion, like many partners that stream games during the regular season, doesn’t have rights to stream any of those games. Still, NeuLion cofounder Chris Wagner says, the NCAA postseason is “our time of year.”
We still aren’t quite at the point so many sports fans wish for: one single, simple platform, accessible for a flat fee, without a cable subscription, that has every single game. Instead, you’ll have to employ a combination of options to stream this year’s March Madness games.
Here’s how to do it.
CBS games
The 24 games that are broadcast on CBS (including the final seven games of the tournament) are all available for free, unlimited, no cable subscription required, through the NCAA’s March Madness website or using its March Madness app on a smartphone or tablet. The games cannot be streamed to a connected TV device.
TBS, TNT, TruTV games
The other 43 games of the tournament are broadcast on either TBS, TNT, or TruTV—all owned by Turner. You can start watching those games on the NCAA site or apps, too, but the free access expires after three hours.
So, you can watch those games through on one of the following platforms:
Cable subscription: If you have a cable subscription that includes Turner networks, you can authenticate with your login on the NCAA March Madness website or mobile app and watch all 64 games.
Over-the-top (OTT) options: Some OTT packages will allow you to authenticate on the NCAA website or app, but some won’t. Here’s a breakdown.
Watch TBS, Watch TNT, Watch truTV: Obviously, Turner’s own suite of OTT platforms will offer the games that are on their networks, but only with a cable subscription. And if you have a cable subscription, you’d likely just want to stick to the NCAA site or app to keep it simple, since that’s where you can also stream the CBS games.
PlayStation Vue allows login to the NCAA streaming platform. On its own platform, it will have all the Turner games, but will have the CBS games for only just over half the country.
DirectTV Now allows login to the NCAA streaming platform. On its own platform, it will have all the Turner games, but no CBS games.
Sling TV allows login to the NCAA streaming platform, but only to see CBS games. On its own platform, it will have TBS and TNT games, but TruTV games will only be available to certain membership levels of Sling. And Sling TV will not have any CBS games on its own platform.
So, to recap: It would be possible to stream every single March Madness game, but not without a cable subscription or a paid subscription to an OTT service.
Enjoy the Madness.
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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.
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