There is plenty to be fond of during each of the 12 months of the year, but my favorite remains the same.
March, oh, how I love thee, even if you are changing right in front of my eyes.
Not only does March, most importantly, bring the Madness of the college basketball conference and NCAA tournaments, but almost every college and pro sport that I keep up with is competing.
One of the highlights of the month is the announcement of Big Dance participants, which Arkansas will be among for the third time in the last four years after missing out 10 times in the previous 13 seasons.
The NCAA is throwing a changeup this season, likely a reaction to the full bracket being leaked two years ago before the show and complaints about how long it took to get the pairings announced around commercials.
This year’s March Madness bracket reveal at 5 p.m. Sunday will be different in several ways, beginning with the fact that TBS is taking over the honors and the selections will be announced before a live audience in Atlanta.
It’s the first time in 36 years that the brackets won’t be announced on CBS.
Hosts Ernie Johnson and Greg Gumbel will be joined by analysts Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley, Seth Davis and Kenny Smith in Atlanta. Selection Committee Chair Bruce Rasmussen will also join Adam Zucker from CBS Studios in New York.
A new tweak is all 68 teams will be announced in the first 10 minutes of the show.
The automatic bids will be announced in alphabetical order by conference. Then at-large selections will be revealed in alphabetical order.
The full bracket — normally announced by CBS and now in alternate years with TBS — will then be announced with all matchups released within the first 45 minutes of the two-hour show.
“I think teams will appreciate getting the information as fast as possible,” Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer at Turner Sports, told USA TODAY Sports. “If that means we lose one or two reaction shots from teams, that’s a small price to pay for doing what’s best for the viewer and the teams in the tournament. Whenever you make a change, there’s always some risk.”
So basically, you’ll know Arkansas is in the field early, but it still could be 5:45 p.m. before you know who and where the Razorbacks will be playing and what seed they are.
That’s at least better than the 90 minutes that it took two years ago.
“That was a big lesson,” Barry said.
Last year’s selection show fell to an all-time low of 4.883 million viewers and has lost viewers since 2014. It is down 31 percent since 2009, when it drew 7.079 million viewers, according to Sports Illustrated.
The news of the announcement of all 68 teams up-front was met with a lot of skepticism by fans on social media.
“I don’t know why there’d be an uproar,” said Harold Bryant, executive producer and senior vice president of production at CBS. “Everyone will know early in the broadcast who’s in, and then they’ll find out who they’re going to play.”
All 67 of the NCAA Tournament games will be televised between CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, which will take a break from Impractical Jokers, Adam Ruins Everything, Hack My Life, The Carbonaro Effect and Chris Webber’s Full Court Pranks for college basketball.
The First Four — held Tuesday and Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio., and televised on truTV — features the four lowest-seeded teams as well as the last four teams to receive at-large bids.
The Final Four in San Antonio is set for March 31 with the championship game on April 2. Those three games will be on TBS.
Dudley E. Dawson can be reached at ddawson@nwadg.com .