Revisiting the disastrous two-hour NCAA Tournament Selection Show

It’s March. We made it.

In two weeks, we’ll have a bracket, and all will be right in the wonderful world of sports. The NCAA tournament is one of the few events that unites us as a country, with a smorgasbord of college basketball games to enjoy. It begins with the bracket reveal and ends with One Shining Moment for the national champion.

We love Selection Sunday because it’s simple and fun to watch the unveiling of the Field of 68. The show is virtually impossible to mess up. However, ten years ago, CBS accomplished the impossible. The decision to expand its Selection Show from one hour to two hours remains one of the worst ideas in the network’s history. It was universally panned, a ratings disaster, and upstaged by a leak of the bracket.

In hindsight, the decision looks even worse today. Way back in 2016, we had longer attention spans. CBS made a grave mistake by assuming a captive audience would simply accept this new format. A longer show gave the network more real estate for more commercials. They could simply drag out the bracket reveal for manufactured drama and profit.

Instead of quickly giving us the bracket, a TV program that began at 5:30 p.m. ET did not reveal the tournament field until 5:50 p.m. To make matters worse, instead of continuing to unveil the rest of the teams, it interrupted the flow with interviews and bloated analysis. The previous version of the Selection Show first showed the audience all four regions, then went into a deeper dive by speaking with the coaches and the committee chair, and provided a breakdown of the games.

No one wanted this. It was torture. Imagine how joyless your childhood Christmas would be if your parents filibustered for 20 minutes before you could unwrap each present.

CBS displayed a shocking blind spot to the wrath of college sports media and fans. It was also a reminder to never underestimate the power of public shaming.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times wrote: “Who asked for it? Are two-hour studio shows worth watching, especially if all you want to know is who’s playing whom and where? To read off each region’s bracket requires about six minutes — meaning all the relevant content should be covered in about 24 minutes. Throw in some analysis and interviews, and an hour-long format made much more sense.”

New York Post curmudgeon Phil Mushnick opined that CBS “decided to stretch its NCAA Tournament Selection show — 10 minutes of news — into a two-hour slog designed to maximize ad revenues, make suckers of the audience and promote. He added: “The national bad faith CBS engendered Sunday is incalculable, but significant. Viewers knew they were had; they were upset and unlikely to forget.”

Both Sandomir and Mushnick were old enough to remember when the Selection Show was a crisp 30 minutes from 1982 to 2001. But the promise of more ad revenue led to a longer show. This time, CBS got too greedy. The backlash was so fierce that CBS immediately made changes for 2017, promising a faster bracket reveal. The 2-hour format was cut to 90 minutes. Despite the improved show, ratings dipped further in 2017, though that might have been due to lingering bad feelings from 2016.

What are the lessons learned from the debacle? First, outrage matters. CBS responded to the negativity. The public and the media made it clear that this was something they didn’t want. Second, more is not necessarily better. Sometimes, more is worse. That’s something the NCAA and its broadcast partners should be sensitive to, especially with the possibility of future tournament expansion.

Yes, these are challenging financial times. Having more product to sell usually leads to more money. But nobody wants a diluted version of something they love. The NCAA realized this after the 2016 experience. Hopefully, it will keep that in mind in the future.