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Discussion topic: NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament

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This message was authored by shrouded+mystery This message was authored by: shrouded+mystery

Re: NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament

@Thorold33 

Sky is showing the game on Sky Sports Arena which is channel 412.

 

This message was authored by Thorold33 This message was authored by: Thorold33

Re: NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament

It's on now, half an hour later than what the guide said.

There were at least two other live games going on at 11:30pm (when Sky said they would be showing coverage) but instead of showing one of those they were showing random rugby league highlights, one of the games looked like it was from the 90s. 

 

If they aren't allowed to show more than 3 games a week or 2 games per round or whatever terrible package it is that they bought then they shouldn't advertise it on the guide until the game is actually scheduled to start.  That's just sloppy, no excuse for that.

 

It's just sad that you really can't enjoy March Madness in the UK anymore all because Sky bought the exclusive rights and barely show anything at all.  ESPN/BT/TNT did a much better job when they had it, not even close, it actually felt like watching it in North America.  You'd expect with American owners that Sky would clue in and copy that model.  There's no way 30 year old rugby highlights is popping a bigger rating than March Madness for them, and if it did pop a rating at all it's only because of the dishonest technique of putting an incorrect start time on the guide and basketball fans are tuning in and sitting there watching for a couple of minutes in confusion.

This message was authored by Timelord2018 This message was authored by: Timelord2018

Re: NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament


@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.


TNT Sports themselves decided to drop all coverage.

This message was authored by MPartic This message was authored by: MPartic

Re: NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament

@Thorold33 

 

It seems you can watch games live on the NCAA website. Not great with the time difference and inability to record but at the weekends the games are starting at 6.30pm our time.

 

https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2024/03/24

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