Courtesy USA Today

(February 16, 2011) The revamped NCAA men's basketball tournament coverage debuting on CBS and three Turner Broadcasting channels next month seems promising: Viewers will be able to watch each game in its entirety, the field expands with new play-in games and Turner's NBA announcers will bring new takes.

But Billy Packer, who called 34 consecutive TV Final Fours before leaving CBS in 2008, isn't buying in. While crediting CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus with doing an "incredible job" in getting Turner to help share the TV rights fees, he says the NCAA was only interested in maximizing its revenues rather than finding a "better way to show the tournament. Otherwise, ESPN would have the tournament in its entirety."

ESPN would be better, he says, partly because it has announcers doing college games all season. He likens using NBA announcers to when he used to turn down requests to work NBA action by saying, " 'I'm not qualified, it's a different sport.' " This, he says, is like CBS' Verne Lundquist calling SEC football all year "and then having somebody who just did the pros come in to call the SEC title game." And, he says, ESPN would have better NCAA promotion: "I don't believe I was in a promo for CBS college basketball in 25 years."

Packer says he likes watching truTV, one of the Turner channels carrying NCAA games. "And people who watch it aren't going to be happy they're missing their cops and robbers shows. If truTV viewers liked basketball, they'd already be watching ESPN."

But with CBS' old regionalized coverage now gone, isn't it good for viewers who want to see a specific NCAA game to not have to worry about missing it because they're in the wrong local TV market? "What percentage of the total audience does that represent," says Packer. "Has all this been changed for the .01% of viewers who really want a specific game?"

And viewers, warns Packer, will miss the old system of being switched to the hottest action. Recalling working regional sites where "none of the games were really good," he says the old way "enabled the product to never have to show them (widely) by going to exciting buzzer-beaters instead."

But isn't it good the field expanded to 68 teams gives a few more bubble teams a chance to dance? "It's all about money and political correctness, not tournament quality. Are those new play-in games going to be better than what you can watch on ESPN tonight? No. Why play them?"

Not surprisingly, Packer isn't looking to get back his old CBS headset. "The game has regressed incredibly in the last 10 years, at all levels and the coaches know it. … It's a different world and to do a good job you'd have to buy into it. That's why I couldn't do it anymore." And, it's fair to say, why CBS wouldn't ask him to.

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