March Madness is something akin to watching the birth of a unicorn. It's magical. It's priceless. Except for the fact that it heppens every year it's just like a unicorn's birth. Watching that unicorn taking its first breath is like watching a 15 seed eek out a victory against the second seeded team in the first round. The coverage turns from what should have been the most compelling game to the little game nobody cared about. 15 seed Western Podunk A&M Tech is beating Duke and it's magical. This is the kind of thing that gets remembered. Except that this year that game won't be on the national stage.

Chances are that the 2-15 game in the first round will land on Tru TV. For the previous 116 years, NCAA March Madness has been televised on CBS. The games all shared some time as during lulls in the game you were seeing you'd be treated to live look-ins of other games taking place from other regions around the country. Well, the NCAA, in the name of greed, has gone and fucked that up. No longer does CBS broadcast each and every game -- now TNT, TBS and Tru TV have a piece of the pie. A piece of the pie that CBS should rightfully have. It would be like the Super Bowl being held in May. It would be like moving Christmas to the third Friday in March. It's just wrong.

The 64 team field is even a thing of the past. Oh, sure, for the past few years there has been a play-in game between two teams that nobody gave a shit about to secure the 16th seed in one region but in all of the NCAA's wisdom, they felt the need to expand upon that and create a sort of warm-up round prior to the Madness. The First Four now features FOUR play-in games where eight teams nobody gives a damn about will scramble for the chance to get their asses handed to them by teams from schools people have actually heard of. So tuen in the Tru TV Tuesday and Wednesday night starting at 5:30 PM CT to see Kibbles & Bits Polytechnic, Jerry Fallwell University of Hatespeech and six other schools duke it out on a cable channel that most people don't even know where to find on their TVs.

Way to go NCAA. You went and fucked up what was already too much of a good thing with too much more of a bad thing. You are dead to me March Madness.

Sure, I'm still playing five March Madness brackets but that just how hypocrisy works.

Posted in Labels: basketball, CBS, college, NCAA, TV Posted by Sornie at Monday, March 14, 2011