NCAA Selection Show will revert to old format after unpopular change in 2018
Last year’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show began with technical difficulties and ended with fan outrage.
The show had moved from CBS to TBS, and host Greg Gumbel’s welcome had an audio problem, which people might have been able to live with. You can always hit mute, right?
But last year’s show also unveiled the 68-team field in alphabetical order rather than revealing the regions one at a time. That didn’t fly with fans. Heck, TBS even had trouble ordering the teams correctly.
This Sunday, however, things will look as they once did, and that includes the network that will be broadcasting the show. This year’s Selection Show will be broadcast on CBS (Ch. 5) from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. You can stream the show here.
Also, media reporter Richard Deitsch shared this on Twitter: “CBS will be changing the NCAA Selection Show from last year’s broadcast on TBS. No rolling out all the teams in alphabetical order this year. They will return to unveiling the teams in brackets when you first see them on the screen.”
That’s likely to be met with approval, and it could result in better ratings. Yahoo noted that last year’s Selection Show had an overnight rating of just 1.6, which was not only a record low but also nearly half the viewership from the previous year.
One could be attributed that to the show being on cable, but it likely had to do with fan unhappiness, too.
