UPDATE: CBS Sports is officially off the hook for televising the worst NCCA Selection Sunday Show two years when it slow-walked the bracket so much somebody leaked it online. That honor now goes to TBS, which was widely ripped for its first-ever presentation of the Selection Show Sunday night.
From the get-go, this telecast was a technical disaster.
The audio and video feed feeds were not synced up, with audio running about 5-10 seconds behind.
Co-hosts Greg Gumbel and Ernie Johnson said one thing but we heard another.
The effect was like watching one of those dubbed foreign movies like "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" The only thing missing was Raymond Burr.
Things got so bad during the first 10 minutes that TBS directors cut away from camera feeds of Gumbel and Johnson, relying on audio only.
One viewer called it the "Ishtar" of Selection Shows on Twitter, referring to one of the biggest box office disasters in movie history. Other critics were equally scathing.
So the Selection Show moved to TBS and became a bad king fu movie
— Brad Denny (@BDenny29) March 11, 2018
The extraordinary drama normally associated with this has been completely muted by the format. This was a terrible idea.
— Mike Greenberg (@Espngreeny) March 11, 2018
already hate this show, the audio is off
— Shelby Mast (@BracketWAG) March 11, 2018
I hate to say it, but somebody's probably losing their job at Turner Sports tonight.
To think that this year's 2-hour show on TBS, used to be only 30 minutes. If something's worth doing on TV, then TV overdoes it.
PREVIOUS: Of all the issues that need fixing in collegiate sports, televised pre-tournament spectacles is certainly on the bottom of the list. But, here we are.
CBS and Turner Sports announced on Tuesday that changes were coming to this year's March Madness Selection Show on TBS. The networks have decided to announce all 68 NCAA Tournament teams in alphabetical order — beginning with the automatic bids, then going to the at-large bids — at the beginning of the show.
MARCH MADNESS: Projected NCAA Tournament bracket
Following the proverbial curb-stomping of any potential drama, hosts and analysts will spend the remainder of the program's two hours revealing the tournament bracket, discussing the matchups and interviewing members from teams in the tournament.
In case that wasn't enough for college basketball fans, Turner Sports and CBS Sports will produce a special four-hour (!) Social Madness social media preshow that will stream exclusively on all official March Madness handles. Also, the whole show will be filmed in front of a live studio audience for some reason.
Some college basketball writers and fans alike expressed their displeasure with the move on Twitter.
STOP CHANGING THINGS THAT DON'T NEED CHANGING!!! https://t.co/ww7QfIjrBE
— Shannon Ryan (@sryantribune) March 6, 2018
Part of the drama is waiting for your team to be revealed. When you are on the bubble, it’s waiting to see IF you’re in. This eliminates that. Don’t get it.
— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) March 6, 2018
"In 2019, CBS will first release the list of teams that didn't make the tournament. Then we'll place the teams in 100 different brackets, but only one bracket will be correct. One clue will be revealed every hour. When all the clues have been solved, the blood ritual will begin." https://t.co/8lZIphAwQP
— Mark Titus (@clubtrillion) March 6, 2018
Why are they releasing the teams before the bracket? I get it when they do it for the No. 1 seeds, but anything more than that seems to take the drama out of the actual reveal.
— John Templon (@nybuckets) March 6, 2018
CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT BRACKETS:
AAC | ACC | Big 12 | Big East | Big Ten | Pac-12 | SEC
In theory, there are some potential upsides of having the show in this format. For fans of teams on the cusp of the tournament bubble, it will make the wait for their team to get put in a bracket region a lot less agonizing. For TBS, maybe there's a smaller window for the bracket to be leaked online before it's revealed on the show.
It will also gives fans an opportunity to see the comedy of Charles Barkley trying to talk about college basketball on live TV.
But outside of those reasons, these changes are pretty much pointless. Viewers of this show's past iterations are tuning in because the slow reveal of the bracket adds a bit of drama. Now that's all gone and the show more or less becomes pointless for the remainder of its run time. But that doesn't seem to resonate with Harold Bryant, executive producer and senior vice president of production at CBS.
“I don’t know why there’d be an uproar,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “Everyone will know early in the broadcast who’s in, and then they’ll find out who they’re going to play.”
For what it's worth, Bryant is a graduate of Rutgers, whose tournament hopes were stamped out after a loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament. It would certainly be improper to attribute the change in format to his alma mater, but it would be negligent to not mention it at all.
The 2018 NCAA March Madness Selection Show will air on March 11 at 6 p.m. ET on TBS.