The NCAA men's basketball tournament may be leaving CBS after almost 30 years.
The rumored suitor is ESPN.
Talk about a contrast in coverage.
Whereas we get middle-of-the-road commentary and decent analysis on the three-letter network (Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery are great together. So are Dick Enberg and whoever he's paired up with), the four-letter network can't stand the thought of providing nuts and bolts. Such a necessity is almost an afterthought. Dick Vitale cannot stay on topic for more than 10 seconds, unless the topic is who he had dinner with three weeks before the broadcast.
ESPN is full of stars – wannabes like Chris Berman, Stuart Scott and Neal Everett – and real ones.
Television sports coverage is louder than it used to be – make that needs to be. Everything else in society seems louder than it needs to be. So from that standpoint, the NCAAs on ESPN may be a perfect fit. ESPN's audience is hipper, much younger than CBS.
I'd rather see the NCAA remain with CBS. Good nuts and bolts are much easier to swallow.
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