How to stream every game of March Madness 2023

The selection committees have made their choices and the brackets have been set. Another part of the year’s undoubtedly best sports weekend is about to tip. March Madness or the NCAA basketball tournament begins today with two First Four games on the men’s side. Thanks to the NCAA’s partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the men’s tournament, and Disney (ESPN) for the women’s, you can stream all matches, and some will even be available for free. Here’s your guide to how to stream March Madness 2023, from where to watch to when the games begin.

When does March Madness start?

Depending on who you ask, the 2023 NCAA Tournament begins either Tuesday or Thursday. On March 14 and 15, the March Madness schedule includes the first four or four “play-in” games. These allow four more teams to “make the tournament” than if the selection committee only filled the two 16-seed and two 12-seed slots with one school in each slot. Some argue that the full event doesn’t really start until Thursday and Friday the 16th. and March 17, when the first round officially tips.

No matter which side you land on, the First Four games will start at 6:40 p.m. ET every night on truTV, while Thursday and Friday games begin at 12:15 p.m. ET, with the first game on CBS. These two days are the busiest and some of the most popular in the tournament, as 16 matches are played on each. Yes, these are two of the least productive days of the entire year in the United States. It is also the most popular time to schedule a vasectomy. The action continues with the second round on Saturday and Sunday 18 and 19 March, before a break until next Thursday. This is when the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds are played during the second four-day weekend of the tournament. The Final Four is set for Saturday, April 1, while the national championship will be played on Monday, April 3.

How to Stream the 2022 Men’s NCAA Tournament

Unlike during the regular season when you need to know which network the team’s conference has a broadcast deal with to find most of the games, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports the rights to the entire Men’s NCAA Tournament. This means you will be able to watch all 67 games, including the first four, on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. If you have cable, you’re good to go. If you pay for a live TV streaming service like YouTube TV or Hulu, you’re in good shape, too. If you don’t have any of them, don’t worry, you can still watch a good portion of the tournament.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports will allow anyone to watch the games broadcast by CBS on the web and mobile devices without a login from a television provider. Paramount+ users will be able to do the same through that streaming app. If you have credentials from your TV subscription, you can stream everything through March Madness Live which is available on a variety of devices. You can find it on Android and iOS for mobile and macOS and the web on the desktop. For streaming devices, it’s on Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV, Roku and Xbox as well as some LG smart TVs.

With any of these home entertainment devices, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports provide you with a very useful feature. On Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV and Xbox One, the March Madness Live app lets you stream two games simultaneously. However, online you will find the best option. Starting this year, the broadcaster added the ability to stream up to four games simultaneously. If you choose mobile or tablet versions, you’ll get picture-in-picture viewing while scrolling away from the main game. The company has also expanded its Fast Break whiparound broadcast beyond mobile and web for 2023, adding real-time analysis of big games to its apps for streaming devices, consoles and smart TVs.

NCAA/WBD Sports/CBS Sports

YouTube TV has also added multiview streaming just in time for the tournament, but the platform only offers pre-selected groupings – you won’t have the ability to choose which games you follow on your own right now. YouTube TV’s version is also only available to select Early Access subscribers, but it will be available on any smart TV or streaming device that supports the service.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports also added CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility this year, giving you easy access to live radio broadcasts on the school pickup line. On iOS, the March Madness Live app now supports Live Activities, so you can get live updates right on your lock screen should you be charged with a matchup during a game you’re interested in.

You can certainly use the cable interface or streaming TV service of your choice, but Warner Bros. Discovery Sports has made March Madness Live a centralized hub for the tournament. If you have credentials that give you access to everything, using them will allow you to jump from game to game much faster than flipping through a guide. And the broadcaster also gives you all the alerts and stats you could ask for, including the ability to easily follow picks from the March Madness bracket if you filled it out on NCAA.com.

Streaming of the 2022 Women’s NCAA Tournament

As if one NM tournament in March wasn’t enough, the women’s edition takes place at the same time. It is March Madness after all. The First Four is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday March 15 and 16, with the March Madness schedule consisting of the first and second rounds between Friday 17 March and Monday 20 March. The Sweet Sixteen and Elite 8 will run Friday through Monday again, starting March 24, and the Final Four and National Championship Game are set for March 31 and April 2.

If you notice there are some scheduling differences such that there are only women’s games on Mondays and both the Final Four and the championship are split between the same men’s events. So when it comes to crunch time, you can watch the finish of both tournaments live without having to sacrifice watching the other.

ESPN has the rights to the Women’s NCAA Tournament, so you can expect games to appear on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS. The first two of the first four matches are broadcast at 7:00 PM ET and 9:00 PM ET on ESPNU on Wednesday night, with the other pairing on ESPN2 on Thursday night. First-round matchups begin at 11:30 a.m. ET Friday and Saturday on ESPN2, with subsequent games on those days expanding to the other networks.

Again, if you have a cable subscription or streaming TV service with Disney’s sports channels, you’re good to go. However, the best place to watch all the action will be the ESPN app. Here you get access to a multicast feature that will give you up to four games at once (YouTube TV didn’t specify if it would include women’s games in its multiview trial). Multicast will be especially useful during the first four days of the tournament when a lot of action is happening at the same time. However, it is only available on Apple TV and Xbox One.

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