NCAA Press Release Archive

NCAA.com To Serve As The Official Online Destination Of The Division I Men’s And Women’s Basketball Tournaments

Site to provide complete coverage including video highlights, live stats and schedules through the Men’s and Women’s Final Four

For Immediate Release

Monday, March 14, 2011

Contact(s)

Tareia Williams
Turner Sports
404/575-9710
tareia.williams@turner.com

Gail Dent
NCAA
317/917-6117
gdent@ncaa.com

Turner Sports and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced today that NCAA.com will be the official online destination of NCAA® March Madness® for the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball tournaments. The site will provide fans with complete coverage from every game of the Tournaments including pre and post game stories, up-to-the-minute scores, live stats, video highlights and photo galleries capturing those can’t miss moments. In addition to March Madness on Demand (MMOD), NCAA.com will be the exclusive home for real-time video highlights of the Men’s Basketball Tournament via the March Madness Video Hub.

NCAA.com will serve as the official bracket headquarters of the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament with the NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge. Through this Bracket Challenge, fans can create a group and challenge their friends to pick the winners of each round in this year’s tournament. In addition, the site is offering an interactive tournament bracket for the men’s and women’s tournaments where fans can follow every round of the tournament with live score updates and links to all related content for each game.

The site will also include:

Historical Features including a Classic 68 Bracket where fans have the opportunity to watch and vote for the most classic game in NCAA Men’s Tournament history, as well as editorial features on Legends of the Game, Where are They Now and Today in History moments. The site also features the NCAA Vault, where fans can watch more than 250 full-length Tournament games dating back to 1977.

Off the Court Coverage featuring behind the scenes video coverage from the Final Four®, student-athlete, coach and school features, post-game press conferences and the Player of the Day profiles.

The Coke Zero® NCAA March Madness Social Arena will provide a gathering point for the Men’s basketball championship social conversation. Complete with live social hosts, fan comments, and Turner Sports and CBS courtside reporters, it will capture news, trends, and sentiment of fans throughout the tournament. The March Madness Social Arena will extend onto Facebook and NCAA.com with a way for fans to LIKE teams in each round and build their social score in an innovative view of the traditional bracket, as well as comment on games, interact with the social hosts, and rate highlights.

My Channels is a new application, available on the NCAA March Madness on Demand live products and NCAA.com that will make it easy for fans to find games on one of the four TV networks: TBS, TNT, truTV and CBS. Through My Channels, fans can plug in their zip code, select their TV provider and see their channel lineup for every game.

The Official NCAA Online Store will serve as the one-stop shop for merchandise for all tournament teams. Fans can purchase Sweet 16® and Final Four gear and get the complete line of National Champion apparel after the title game.

“NCAA March Madness is a premier digital sporting event and we’re extremely excited to be the official online home for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments,” said Mark Johnson vice president business operations, NCAA digital. “We’re giving college basketball fans the ultimate online experience with access to exclusive live and on-demand video, enhancements and new features, as well as all the compelling stories and drama around these historic tournaments. ”

“NCAA.com is a central location where fans can get all of the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament coverage and information, which makes the online experience enjoyable for every user,” said Greg Shaheen, NCAA interim executive vice president for championships and alliances. “Not only is NCAA.com the destination for non-stop updates on NCAA championships, but it also features more content on tournament teams, team and student-athlete features, social conversation and tournament merchandise, as well as new and enhanced features that make the online journey fun to navigate.”

About Turner Sports

Turner Sports, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., is an industry leader in televised and online sports programming, airing championship level sporting events on TBS, TNT and truTV, and managing some of the most popular sports sites on the Internet. Turner Sports’ television line-up includes the NBA, Major League Baseball, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, NASCAR and professional golf. The company’s digital portfolio includes SI.com, NASCAR.COM, NCAA.com, PGATOUR.COM, GOLF.com and PGA.com, as well as an accompanying collection of mobile websites and connected device apps. Turner Sports and the NBA also jointly manage NBA Digital, which includes NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA LEAGUE PASS, NBA Mobile, the NBA Game Time App, NBADLEAGUE.com and WNBA.com.

About the NCAA

The NCAA is a membership-led nonprofit association of colleges and universities committed to supporting academic and athletic opportunities for more than 400,000 student-athletes at more than 1,000 member colleges and universities. Each year, more than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships in Divisions I, II and III sports. Visit www.ncaa.org and www.ncaa.com for more details about the Association, its goals and members and corporate partnerships that help support programs for student-athletes. The NCAA is proud to have the following elite companies as official Corporate Champions—AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola—and the following elite companies as official Corporate Partners—Enterprise, The Hartford, Infiniti, LG, Lowe’s, Planters, Reese’s, Unilever and UPS.

NCAA, Final Four, First Four and March Madness are trademarks owned or licensed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.