The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament is underway with a field of 68 teams selected to compete for ultimate glory in college basketball. As the first-round slate of games airs across Paramount Global (CBS, Paramount+) and Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT, TBS, truTV, Max), the companies are working in tandem under an existing media rights deal that runs through 2032. John Skipper, the former president of ESPN, divulged that the company was trying to land the rights to the March Madness tournament and stated that the network was willing to put every game on the airwaves.
During the latest edition of The Sporting Class podcast, Skipper admitted that not possessing tournament rights made him jealous and made him angry at the time because the network had made a strong push. Skipper remembered that he had met with Greg Shaheen, the former executive vice president of the NCAA, in a park outside of Indianapolis where he presented him with an offer to purchase rights to the tournament.
“We proposed immediately taking the tournament to 96 teams,” Skipper said. “We also proposed televising every game, and before we made that offer, remember in the days before that, they actually regionalized the early-round games because CBS could not show one game, so we thought we had an extraordinarily compelling proposition.”
David Samson, former president of the Miami Marlins and co-host of the podcast, asked Skipper if the company had offered games on ABC. Although Skipper could not remember, he conjectured that agreeing to put the semifinals and finals on ABC was likely a part of the offer. On top of that, Skipper remembers articulating in the meeting that if anyone else offered more money for the package to come back to him and proceeded to recall how the committee approached the decision.
“They were quite loyal to CBS, and CBS has done a great job, got no problem with that,” Skipper said. “I usually found that money trumped loyalty, and by the way, doing a better tournament, more teams, more exposure, and that is the time that TNT saved CBS because they went and said, ‘Why don’t we do it together? We can put all the games on.’ They did not offer more money.”
In the end, the NCAA agreed to a deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting reportedly worth $10.8 billion over 13 years. The media rights contract was subsequently expanded through 2032 for a reported $8.8 billion over the additional eight years. Skipper stated his belief that ESPN could have done a better tournament and also was the proverbial home of college basketball to that point with 1500 regular season games.
“They had the discussion of where they should go, there was loyalty to CBS and there also, and I do know this, that part of the conversation was, ‘ESPN’s got too much, and we don’t want ESPN to have everything,’” Skipper recalled. “We insisted on going to 96, and they did the great thing that the NCAA always does, which is they do something dumb which is, ‘Let’s go to 68.’ It’s like why would that be the response to, ‘Let’s go from 64 to 96, and 32 teams will get a first-round bye, and it’ll be great – there will be more games.’”
Later in the segment, Skipper explained that ESPN being asked to join would not have been out of the question, presumably referring to negotiations surrounding the tournament. Yet he remembered that CBS was trying to cut expenses under chief executive officer Les Moonves, who had skepticism surrounding the company deciding to enter an expensive media rights deal.
“I must give Sean McManus and David Levy credit,” Skipper said. “They banded together to keep the evil empire from taking the tournament, and TNT took the lion’s share of the money too and got a final, I think in year four or something. So CBS didn’t want to give up the semis and the finals, but they ended up doing it.”
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
