What's new about the 2018 NCAA Selection Show

KEVIN DRAPER

New York Times News Service,

March 10, 2018

Sunday’s edition of the “March Madness Selection Show,” the annual unveiling of the 68 men’s basketball teams that made the NCAA Tournament and the brackets in which they will play, will have a new look, as well as a new home.

For the first time, the show will be televised on TBS instead of its longtime home, CBS, beginning at 6 p.m. ET Sunday. (Turner, TBS’ parent company, and CBS share the rights to the tournament.) Turner designed a new studio on its Atlanta campus for the show, which will have a live audience this year — one of a number of significant changes to the show’s format in the wake of some recent, high-profile blunders.

The 2016 selection show, on CBS, was widely viewed as a debacle. Expanded to two hours, the show slow-played the reveal of the bracket — an attempt to manufacture drama and justify the longer show — but was greeted by loud complaints from viewers. Even worse, the correct bracket leaked online before the show began. Last year, a chastened CBS cut the show back to 90 minutes, and moved quickly to unveil the matchups.

Turner will handle things differently. All 68 tournament teams will be revealed within the first 10 minutes of the two-hour show, eliminating any drama about who is left on the bubble, and the full regional brackets will be shown over the next half-hour. Ernie Johnson and Greg Gumbel will host the show, joined in the studio by analysts Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Seth Davis.

“We don’t just do two hours for the sake of doing two hours,” David Levy, Turner’s president, said. “We have to have a quality show.”

He added: “The relief valve is going to happen earlier now: ‘Phew! We’re all in. Now, where are we going? Who are we playing against?’ It’s just a different way of looking at it.”

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