March Madness is here. Whether you are the type of college basketball fan who considers conference championship week as part of the "Madness" (you should be!), or if you are the type of college basketball fan who waits for Selection Sunday, it is time for multi-screen views, free trials of streaming services, and sneaky basketball viewings during work. The NCAA Tournament begins this week.
If searching for good picks to go all the way (Dawn Staley's South Carolina basketball team on the women's side, anyone??), non-1 seed teams who have the chance to dominate (Bruce Pearl's Auburn Tigers in the Men's Tournament, perhaps?), or Cinderella stories (Nebraska's men and women could be fun lower seeds), it will be important to pay attention to the brackets as soon as they come out on Sunday.
The NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday shows will take place tonight. The men's show will be broadcast first. Beginning at 6:00 on CBS (or streamed on Paramount+), the show will last about two hours. The women's selection show will start after the men's. The 8:00 show will be shown on ESPN and streamed on the ESPN app.
Hacks for Watching the NCAA Tournament
Listed below are some hacks for making your NCAA Tournament viewing better, more thorough, or even cheaper.
- Download the March Madness Live app. There is a multiview stream that allows for up to four games on one device or two full-screen views on two connected devices. Users will need a valid TV subscription.
- YouTubeTV subscribers will also have access to multiview. Games broadcast on TBS, TNT, CBS, and truTV can be grouped for multiview.
- FuboTV also has a multiview option.
- Some Samsung Smart TVs have a split-screen option. Press the home button on your remote control and check for the multiview icon.
- SlingTV users can use the "Picture in Picture" (PiP) feature to have one large viewing window with a smaller one available in the corner. From the menu, selecting "Start PiP" will make the current screen into a smaller window, allowing for another to be opened as the main screen. SlingTV Blue allows for three streams at once on three connected devices.
- ESPN+ subscribers can throw up multiple games on one screen as long as they are using an AppleTV product, an Xbox product, or certain iPhones and iPads.
- PlayStation Vue allows for users to press and hold the X button after starting a stream to bring up a menu that includes a multiview stream option.
- While watching one game on one TV, using a phone, tablet, or computer, college basketball fans can cast or mirror their streams to an extra television. The March Madness Live app, ESPN app, TNT app, TBS app, Paramount+ app, FuboTV app, YouTube TV app, and ABC app all have this capability.
- FuboTV and YouTubeTV both have limited trials available.