The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament is one of those sporting events you can catch without paying a dime for cable or satellite TV. The tournament enters the Final Four phase this week, with the number 9-seeded Florida Atlantic still in the hunt. Nearly every game of the tournament is available through a streaming service or other means. This guide will explain how you can watch every game without cable.
How To Stream The NCAA Basketball Tournament
Every game in March Madness will air on CBS, TBS, TNT, or TruTV. However, to watch from the Final Four through to the championship, you will only need access to CBS. I will have the actual schedule up as soon as it’s available. All your live TV streaming options game is listed below.
- Paramount+ – Watch the rest of the Tournament on CBS with a 7-day free trial
- DIRECTV STREAM – Watch with this 5-day free trial.
- Sling TV – Check this Promo Page
- YouTube TV – offers a 1-week free trial
- Hulu Live TV – Sign up
March Madness Schedule
Every game in March Madness will air on CBS, TBS, TNT, or TruTV. I wanted to cover how you can watch the whole tournament online for free by taking advantage of these streaming services’ free trial offers. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament lasts three weeks. The schedule is as follows:
- Selection Sunday – March 12 on CBS
- First Four – March 14 and 15 with games on truTV
- Round 1 – March 16 and 17 with games on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV
- Round 2 – March 18 and 19 with games on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV
- Sweet 16 – March 23 and 24 with games on CBS and TBS
- Elite Eight – March 25 and 26 with games on CBS and TBS
- Final Four – April 1 on CBS
- National Championship Game – April 3 on CBS
Watch the Final Four
The NCAA Basketball Tournament’s Final 4 will air on CBS.
- Paramount+ – Watch CBS with a 7-day free trial
- DIRECTV STREAM – Watch with this 5-day free trial.
- Sling TV – Check this Promo Page
- YouTube TV – offers a 1-week free trial
- Hulu Live TV – Sign up
If you need CBS to watch a game, you can use this 1-week free trial to a Paramount+ Premium plan. This will provide access to live CBS. The full Final Four schedule is below.
| Date | Time (ET) | Game | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, April 1 | 6:09 p.m | No. 5 San Diego State vs. No. 9 Florida Atlantic | CBS |
| Sat, April 1 | 8:49 p.m. | No. 4 UConn vs. No. 5 Miami | CBS |
Official Printable Bracket
You can download the official NCAA D1 Basketball Championship Bracket from the NCAA.
Streaming the NCAA Basketball Tournament
This year’s games air on four different networks, CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV. At first, this may make you recoil but fear not. All these channels are available in most areas on a few streaming services. TBS, TNT, CBS, and TruTV are available on the many streaming services I cover below.
DIRECTV STREAM
DIRECTV STREAM provides live streaming access to TBS, TNT, TruTV, and CBS. Channel packages start at $79.99 per month. A subscription to DIRECTV STREAM includes the following:
- watch unlimited streams simultaneously per subscription on your home network (limited to 3 when on mobile)
- a cloud-based DVR
- channels like TBS, TNT, TruTV, CBS and more
- supported on Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon FireTV, and more
You can try DIRECTV STREAM by signing up for this 5-day free trial. There is no contract, and you can cancel at any time. You can also learn more about the service in our DIRECTV STREAM review.
YouTube TV
YouTube TV also carries TBS, TNT, TruTV, and CBS in its channel lineup, along with limitless storage space for recording games. Your library of recorded shows can be streamed anywhere.
YouTube TV provides:
- CBS, TNT, TruTV, TBS, Local Network Channels, and over 70 other channels
- unlimited cloud DVR storage
- stream on three devices at once
- YouTube TV supports Roku, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast, and more.
- Includes YouTube TV on-demand
- offers a 1-week free trial.
After a 1-week free trial, YouTube TV costs $72.99 per month. See our YouTube TV review for more details.
Sling TV
Sling TV is the cheapest way to watch NCAA Tournament games airing on TBS, TNT, and TruTV in Sling TV. The channel is in both its “orange” and “blue packages, each priced at $40 a month. Sling offers a promotion when signing up for its service. You can cancel at any time as there are no contracts or long-term commitments.
Sling TV provides a live stream of those channels, so you can watch exactly what would be airing on TBS, just as if you had cable. You can also record games with Sling’s included cloud DVR.
Sling TV is available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, and more, so it’s not a problem to enjoy TBS on a TV, tablet, computer, or other smart devices. To find out more about Sling TV, check out this detailed review of Sling TV.
Paramount+
The Paramount+ Premium plan provides a live stream of your local CBS channels and offers a 7-day free trial so that you can try the service with no risk. After the trial, the service price is $11.99 per month.
Paramount+ is available on Roku Players, Apple TV, Xbox, Chromecast, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Fire TV Stick. See our review of Paramount+ for more information on this streaming service.
Hulu Live TV
Hulu Live TV offers CBS in most markets in the country. They also provide TBS, TNT, and TruTV. To see if Hulu Live TV provides CBS in your area, you can use this tool: Hulu Live TV Channels by Zip code.
If you aren’t in or close to one of these markets, you can still stream TBS, TNT, and TruTV while using a TV antenna to catch your local CBS broadcast. Also, be sure to check out our full review of Hulu Live TV.
Hulu is supported on the following devices:
- Roku
- Amazon Fire TV
- Apple TV
- Google Chromecast
- iOS, Android, and Windows Smartphones and Tablets
- Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and 4
- and much more
You can sign up for Hulu here. The cost is $76.99 per month.
March Madness Live App
The NCAA does offer an app available on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TVs, and Roku. However, the app requires a TV provider login. The app does accept streaming services as a valid provider, but there is a significant drawback. The March Madness Live app won’t stream games airing on CBS live if you use a TV-connected device like Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, etc. Considering a good chunk of games air on CBS, this is a major deal-breaker for cord-cutters. I recommend just watching through your streaming service.
You can download the app below on various platforms.
