It appeared as if a rumored 96-team NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was all but a done deal a few weeks ago. Instead, "The Road to the Final Four" will remain on CBS Sports, but will now get an assist from Turner Broadcasting. CBS & Turner Sports have announced a new 14 year, $10.8 billion deal that starts next year and runs through 2024. The new CBS/Turner deal with the NCAA coincides with word that the Men's Tournament will expand from the current 65 to 68 teams.

For starters, every single NCAA Tournament game next year will be broadcast on CBS, TNT, TBS and/or truTV for the first time in the tourney's 73-year history. The four networks will also split coverage of the Regional Semifinals, while CBS retains the Regional Finals, the Final Four and the National Championship Game through 2015. Turner & CBS will split as broadcast homes of the Regional Finals, and will alternate as broadcast homes of the Final Four & National Championship games starting in 2016. Under terms of the new deal, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com will provide live streaming of every tournament game.

The new deal came at a point where CBS had 3 years left on its previous contract with the NCAA worth about $6 billion and had an opt-out clause until July 31st. The NCAA took CBS' deal at a time where ESPN was said to be more than casually interested in becoming a partner of one of the most lucrative & popular tournaments in all of sports. It turns out 95% of NCAA revenue comes from the NCAA Tournament. NCAA Interim President Jim Isch said the new CBS/Turner Sports' deal will net an average of $740 million to its schools and respective conferences. More importantly, the NCAA badly wanted to have EVERY game in the Tournament broadcast live.

The big thing on this from the media side, I have heard is, will ESPN allow there guys to go to CBS and do the tournament games still or will ESPN say no.

To my knowledge, and you may have noticed it yourself watching NCAA Tournament Basketball in recent years. Bill Raftery, who has analyzed the college game for nearly 3 decades at ESPN, has been a fixture on CBS Sports for a long time, working with Verne Lundquist. The same holds true for Jay Bilas. We know Bilas as a huge part of ESPN's "Big Monday" broadcasts during conference play working these games with Raftery & PBP Sean McDonough. In recent years, ESPN has allowed Bilas to work the NCAA Tournament games on CBS, working those games with the legendary Dick Enberg. That being said, even though CBS & Turner's family of networks will start carrying the NCAA Tournament next year, I have no issue with ESPN "loaning" their analysts to CBS and Turner to cover these games.

I am fine with this as long as I don't see Dick Vitale on my TV.

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