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NCAA Tournament likely to move to ABC/ESPN

Another reason for ALL BCS schools to play a weak non-conference schedule so two-thirds of a conference (or more) will get into the field!! Hopefully Butler will help the committee see different.
 
I hope against all hope ESPN gets the tourney and that it DOES NOT expand... Why are we so dead set on expanding? I have seen NO ONE speak in it's favor and just showing all games on TV should greatly expand the revenue I would think.

ESPN/ABC getting the tourney would be great though, because I get really tired of only caring about one game but having to watch it on my laptop. Nowadays CBS is the worst possible choice for a sporting event like the NCAA tournament because they don't own enough outlets for it.
 
I'm relatively "for" expansion, mainly because I don't buy the "supposed to mean something" argument. I'm pretty sure the tournament has expanded along with the size of division I basketball.

That being said, I only want to see it done if there's some structure to how the field is completed. A different structure for automatic bids and some public definition of the selection process for at-large bids. I don't know that I really trust the NCAA to do a good job with this, but it's what we've got.

Personally I'd like to see something like the following for auto-bids:
1. Conference tourney winner from every conference gets an automatic bid.

2. Conference regular season winner from top 15 conferences (by RPI? by Kenpom?) gets an automatic bid and is guaranteed a first round bye.

3. If the conference tourney of the top 15 conferences is won by the regular season champion then the 2nd place team gets an automatic bid, but the conf. champ still gets the first round bye.

This would increase auto-bids from 31 (32 if you assume the Great West will get an auto-bid next year) to 46 (47).
 
I've got so many thoughts about this, I don't even know where to start.

I really want to see the first year of non-conference scheduling. It seems like the sensible thing to do is schedule for wins only and get in, but if everyone tries it, the selection committee will have to shut the door on some of them.

ESPN televising it over CBS would be better. Some of the second tier announcers on CBS (Harlan, Brando, Eagle) are better than ESPN's, but a Musberger/Vitale/Knight team calling the title game.....ok, not Vitale, but the other 2 sound sweet to me.

And whatever contract ESPN signs with the NCAA must include a Gus Johnson clause. I don't care how.

And be careful here - under the NCAA proposal, CBS could keep the tourney without having it conflict with The Masters. They can bid on this at full strength.
 
Bravesfan said:
I'm sure ESPN360 (soon to be ESPN3) will show these games online. If not, then I think it would be a big mistake!
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I would hope so! I don't want to be watching the Bradley game, only for the end of some game I don't care about to come on. I don't care what network it is on, as long as I can watch all the games online for free. I also hope whatever network it is on, it stays 68 teams or less. Why does switching networks mean automatic expansion?
 
BUfan14 said:
I would hope so! I don't want to be watching the Bradley game, only for the end of some game I don't care about to come on. I don't care what network it is on, as long as I can watch all the games online for free. I also hope whatever network it is on, it stays 68 teams or less. Why does switching networks mean automatic expansion?
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I thought switching networks meant automatic expansion because that would be the only way they did switch networks. Otherwise doesn't CBS hold the rights for a few more years?
 
DUBrave5 said:
I thought switching networks meant automatic expansion because that would be the only way they did switch networks. Otherwise doesn't CBS hold the rights for a few more years?
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I don't know, I just thought the NCAA could opt out after this year. I didn't know it meant they had to expand with another network. I really don't know, I could be wrong.
 
DUBrave5 said:
I thought switching networks meant automatic expansion because that would be the only way they did switch networks. Otherwise doesn't CBS hold the rights for a few more years?
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No, they can switch networks without changing the field. They can do 65 on ESPN if they want.

But the whole point is to opt out of the current contract so that they could write a new contract with the 96-team field. They could theoretically opt out of the current contract and sign a new contract based on a 65-team field.
 
TheAsianSensation said:
No, they can switch networks without changing the field. They can do 65 on ESPN if they want.

But the whole point is to opt out of the current contract so that they could write a new contract with the 96-team field. They could theoretically opt out of the current contract and sign a new contract based on a 65-team field.
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Ohhh okay I didn't know that. Thanks TAS
 
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