Announcers named for this year's NCAA Tournament

This afternoon, CBS Sports and Turner Sports announced their lineup of broadcast teams for the second year of combined coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.  Again this year, both companies will provide live, full national coverage of the tournament’s 67 games across four networks – TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV – as well as across multiple platforms including NCAA March Madness Live.

The tournament tips off on Tuesday, Mar. 13 and Wednesday, Mar. 14 with the NCAA FIRST FOUR on truTV. Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr will be courtside calling the action from Dayton, Ohio on Mar. 13, with Tracy Wolfson reporting. The quartet will team up again when the tournament concludes on CBS Sports with the Final Four and National Championship game live from New Orleans, La. on Saturday, Mar. 31, and Monday, Apr. 2.

Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel, along with courtside reporter Lewis Johnson, handle the call for the FIRST FOUR games on Wednesday, Mar. 14.

Following are the announcer pairings for the second and third rounds (Thursday, Mar. 15 through Sunday, Mar. 18):

• Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg
• Marv Albert and Steve Kerr
• Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery
• Kevin Harlan, Len Elmore and Reggie Miller
• Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel
• Brian Anderson and Dan Bonner
• Tim Brando and Mike Gminski
• Spero Dedes and Bob Wenzel

Tracy Wolfson, Craig Sager, Lesley Visser, Marty Snider, Lewis Johnson, Jaime Maggio and Otis Livingston will serve as courtside reporters throughout the tournament.
 

CBS Sports and Turner Sports will again broadcast from two studios, based in New York and Atlanta, to cover all the tournament action. Studio coverage will again be anchored by Greg Gumbel and Ernie Johnson with Charles Barkley, Greg Anthony and Kenny Smith providing analysis throughout the tournament from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York.  Matt Winer anchors the coverage from Turner Broadcasting’s Atlanta studio and will be joined by Seth Davis and Steve Smith. 

During the Regional semi-finals and finals, Gumbel will remain in the New York studio alongside Barkley, Anthony and Kenny Smith, while Johnson will shift to the Atlanta studios to join Davis and Steve Smith.

Studio coverage for the FIRST FOUR originates from Atlanta and will feature Johnson, Barkley, Anthony, Davis and Kenny Smith on Tuesday with Winer, Davis and Steve Smith providing analysis on Wednesday. 

In the first year of its 14-year partnership, Turner Sports’ and CBS Sports’ exclusive live coverage of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship was the most-watched tournament since 2005, averaging 10.2 million total viewers.  In 2011, more than 176 million people tuned into the tournament.

Information for this story was provided by CBS Sports.

Turner to charge viewers to stream NCAA Tournament games

CBS and Turner Sports will be happy to let viewers watch this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament online ... in Turner's case, for a price.

Users of computers, smartphones and tablets will face a new $3.99 charge to watch the games which will be televised on TBS, TNT and truTV online, Turner announced this morning.

Games streamed on CBSSports.com will be available for free, as will the Turner streams, if your cable, satellite, internet or phone provider has a TV Everywhere agreement with the company. Otherwise, you'll get stuck with the fee.

In explaining the move, Matthew Hong, senior VP and general manager of operations for Turner Sports, said he's not worried that they'll lose viewers because of the fee.  In an interview with Multichannel News, he said, "We're having the digital model match the television model, which is the TV Everywhere authenticated model for digital. We're not fearing a decline in [audience] numbers. The fact that we're making it available via Android and really making the tournament available anywhere people go on whatever device they want to use via TV, iPad, broadband, or mobile device ... the idea is actually to grow that number."

So ... what do you think?  Is Turner's new charge for streaming tournament games a good idea? Will it keep you from watching that way?  Share your thoughts in the comments section or on JDTVB's Facebook page.