NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament

[SH15]

Hello - does anyone know if Sky Sports will be showing all of the March Madness Tournament games? I believe they have the rights, but I don't see many, if any really, in my forward planner, and they start this coming Thursday. If they aren't showing it, how can we watch it in the UK? 

[MarkGoldsmith]

Sky apparently do have the rights but it doesn't mean they are showing all the matches.

It looks like their TV rights for NCAA signed late last year were for 3 games a week, so whilst that might increase for this period it may not cover all games.

[nolte]

By my count, there looks like 9 matches on between Tuesday and next Sunday

Schedules are subject to change

This may be helpful

https://www.skysports.com/watch/basketball-on-sky

[shrouded+mystery]

• I am struggling with the same.  The NCAA basketball tournament 'March Madness' has started and yet Sky Sports are only covering 2 specific games per day and yet on November 18th 2023 the announcement regarding Sky Sports buying the rights indicated they would be showing up to 3 games per week in the regular season from November to March, along with all of March Madness, plus the Championship ship game on April 8th.

I do not see TV listings or coverage of all of March Madness considering First Round games will be happening on Thursday 21st March (today) at UK times: 4.15pm / 4.40pm / 5.30pm / 6pm / 6.45pm / 7.10pm / 8pm / 8.30pm / 10.50pm / 11.10pm / 11.25pm is the game listed on TV schedule McNeese v Gonzaga /  11.35pm / 1.20am / 1.40am / 1.55am / 2.05am.

So only one first round game is being televised on Thursday 21st and this is then repeated again on Friday with only one first round game being televised being Vermont v Duke.

There are 32 First round matches in total and Sky Sports are showing only 2 of them.

There are 16 second round matches and Sky Sports are showing only 3 of them.

This certainly does not constitute showing all of March Madness as indicated in  press releases back in November 2023.

Unfortunately with ESPN ditching its online player in the UK, there is no easy legitimate way to get to watch the exciting madness that is the first and second rounds and to think that I booked holiday from work to do just that... I will now be cancelling my leave and heading back to work for the first time in a long time as previous coverage from previous providers gave us a lot more of the actual tournament than Sky Sports are now.

I personally feel that comments in the press from November 2023 stating all of March Madness would be shown, was and is a total misrepresentation.

[SH15]

Yep, feel exactly the same way @shrouded+mystery . Someone who knows about NCAA basketball needed to tell Sky Sports how to handle this better. Even if you make it stream only, anything is better than this. The NCAA football coverage was rubbish too - either cover it properly or don't buy the rights, has been totally mismanaged

[nolte]

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@shrouded+mystery wrote:

I personally feel that comments in the press from November 2023 stating all of March Madness would be shown, was and is a total misrepresentation.

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Where did sky state all of March madness would be shown?

[MarkGoldsmith]

From the announcement on the Sky sports website from November ( https://www.skysports.com/amp/nfl/news/12118/13010262/sky-sports-secure-rights-to-show-ncaa-college-...)

"The deal will also see three NCAA Basketball games per week shown live in the regular season in 2023/24, including coverage of March Madness.".

That just says coverage it doesn't mention ALL games or total coverage.

[SKY1992bf]

Here is skys official announcement, and I observe the following from it

"The deal will also see three NCAA Basketball games per week shown live in the regular season in 2023/24, including coverage of March Madness."

I'll further observe Sky only mentions "including coverage of" they are not in my opinion committing to full coverage of March madness 

Sky can only show what the rights holders allow them to, therefore I'm inclined to believe NCAA Haven't sold sky full rights to March madness 

[SH15]

That's fine - fair enough. But if you watched NCAA basketball at all, you'd know BT Sports had multiple channels dedicated to the tournament with coverage going from when the games start (at around 4pm) to late at night -- similar to the coverage you'd get if you watched the tournament in the U.S. Am just disappointed Sky hasn't seen fit to follow suit -- the fun of the tournament is watching all the games back to back in the first few days.

[shrouded+mystery]

@nolte @MarkGoldsmith @SKY1992bf @SH15 

Please see my comments made elsewhere which includes a photo of a press article:

https://x.com/karenjpearce/status/1770771307640033754?s=46&t=smwdRYYxJ1Xop-1REFZXgA

The fundamental issue is that Sky purchased the rights and as such took away the coverage provided by BT Sport now TNT.

In the UK, Sky is now the ONLY legal provider for this tournament so with Sky only showing what they are showing has put the UK based viewer at a disadvantage because the coverage is extremely limited compared to previous seasons (whether that be through Setanta Sports, then ESPN then BT Sports as they acquired ESPN all were available to UK residents via satellite subscription).  

UK residents also had access to online streaming with ESPN player which was a separate subscription based service however this is no longer available.

Whatever the deal was with Sky when they bought the rights ... it is the consumer who is suffering the fallout.  It would now appear that the UK resident has now lost the American sports coverage that had been maintained over decades without any apology or explanation as to why.

[SKY1992bf]

@shrouded+mystery  You need to question the NCAA as to whether they sold rights to Sky for all March madness games 

the terms bt had play no relevance in this, the terms agreed between the NCAA and Sky could (and can be) completely different 

as for that press release I would only take information from the rights holders and owners at face value not third parties who don't always have the full facts 

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@shrouded+mystery wrote:

@nolte @MarkGoldsmith @SKY1992bf @SH15 

Please see my comments made elsewhere which includes a photo of a press article:

https://x.com/karenjpearce/status/1770771307640033754?s=46&t=smwdRYYxJ1Xop-1REFZXgA

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That isn't an official press release, that is an article someone has written on a website called hoopsfix.com. Unfortunately you need to take content from third party sites lightly on occassion and its possible they have misread the official release.

As per my previous post the official article on the Sky Sports website specifically doesn't state ALL Match Madness games, it just says they will have coverage.

[nolte]

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@shrouded+mystery wrote:

@nolte @MarkGoldsmith @SKY1992bf @SH15 

Please see my comments made elsewhere which includes a photo of a press article:

https://x.com/karenjpearce/status/1770771307640033754?s=46&t=smwdRYYxJ1Xop-1REFZXgA

The fundamental issue is that Sky purchased the rights and as such took away the coverage provided by BT Sport now TNT.

In the UK, Sky is now the ONLY legal provider for this tournament so with Sky only showing what they are showing has put the UK based viewer at a disadvantage because the coverage is extremely limited compared to previous seasons (whether that be through Setanta Sports, then ESPN then BT Sports as they acquired ESPN all were available to UK residents via satellite subscription).  

UK residents also had access to online streaming with ESPN player which was a separate subscription based service however this is no longer available.

Whatever the deal was with Sky when they bought the rights ... it is the consumer who is suffering the fallout.  It would now appear that the UK resident has now lost the American sports coverage that had been maintained over decades without any apology or explanation as to why.

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If an external website like hoopsfix had Incorrect information in an article, then that is not a problem  for sky, but the external website

[Thorold33]

Sky are now saying there is a game on tonight and instead are showing some random rugby highlights, what a joke!  Sports used to be the only thing Sky did well, now they can't even seem to get that right...

[shrouded+mystery]

@Thorold33 

Yes,  Sky should be showing the below match which is happening at this very moment and yet as you say ... they are showing something else ... what an absolute joke.  

Saturday 23rd March

Texas v Tennessee (11:45pm)