On the heels of one of the most exciting college hoops championship games in recent memory – Villanova’s buzzer-beater to defeat the University of North Carolina 77-74 – the National Collegiate Athletic Association has extended its multimedia rights agreement for the Men’s NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship with CBS and Turner Networks for eight years, in a deal valued at $8.8 billion.

The new deal extends the agreement through 2032, ensuring that the championship tournament, also known as March Madness, will be telecast by the networks for almost two more decades. The three originally reached a 14-year deal for the tournament in 2010, in a pact valued at $10.8 billion.

Through the terms of the new deal, Turner and CBS Sports will provide live coverage of all NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship games across any platform within their respective portfolios, including those to be created over the life of the agreement.

The decision to extend the deal when it still had eight years left – it would have expired in 2024 – was an easy one given the scarcity of iconic sports events like March Madness, Turner president David Levy said on a conference call with reporters.

“From Turner’s perspective, there are very few premium sports properties available that produce the kind of value the NCAA Tournament delivers to our distributors, our advertisers and our consumers,” Levy said.  “As the media landscape continues to evolve, these expansive rights provide us with incredible opportunities to build and pursue new business extensions while developing a deeper connection to our fans across all these different platforms.”

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said the deal fits with the network’s strategy of airing large, iconic events, whether it be the Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl, or the NCAA Tournament.

“When the opportunity presented itself to talk to the NCAA and Turner to extend another eight years, we were very enthusiastic to do that,” McManus said on the conference call. “The fact that we’re securing another big event that has been part of CBS for 35 years is a really great addition and continuation to our lineup of premier events on CBS.”    

Through the terms of the new deal, Turner and CBS Sports will provide live coverage of all NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship games across any platform within their respective portfolios, including those to be created over the life of the agreement.

CBS Sports and Turner will continue to manage and collaborate on the NCAA’s corporate marketing program. Additionally, Turner will continue to manage March Madness Live and NCAA.com, along with major events surrounding NCAA championships, including the NCAA March Madness Fan Fest and Music Festival.

 “The extension of our current agreement will allow our more than 1,100 NCAA member colleges and universities to continue to support student-athletes on 19,000 teams across 24 sports,” said NCAA President Mark Emmert in a statement. “We have a diverse membership with varying resource levels, and this extension will assist our campuses as they provide pathways to opportunity in higher education and beyond for nearly a half a million young men and women each year.”

This year’s tournament was the first where the championship game was aired on cable. Ratings for the championship game were down from the prior year when they were on the broadcast network.

Under the new agreement, all opening-, first- and second-round games will continue to be shown across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV with Turner and CBS splitting coverage of the regional semifinals and regional finals each year.  Live coverage of the Final Four national semifinals and national championship will continue to alternate between CBS and Turner each year, with CBS broadcasting the games in 2017 and TBS televising them in 2018.

Levy said despite the lower cable ratings, there are no plans to change the format.

Levy said a combination of early upsets that eliminated high profile and large market teams like Michigan State University put ratings pressure on the entire tournament, not just the championship game. And he added that the previous five years of the agreement had increased ratings every year.

“This year was sort of an anomaly,” Levy said on the conference call. “The story lines and the match ups as well as the competitiveness of the games really played into the whole tournament. Case in point: last year’s 2015 Kentucky-Wisconsin semi-final game on TBS, was the highest [rated] game in 19 years, broadcast or cable. If there is the right story line the right marchup and a competitive game you’re going to get a rating whether its broadcast or cable.”

The tournament has delivered significant audiences across all platforms throughout the six-year partnership between Turner and CBS.  Television coverage across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV has averaged more than 10.2 million total viewers in its respective game telecast windows over the last six years.  NCAA March Madness Live has more than doubled the number of its live video streams and live hours of consumption since 2011.

Turner and CBS Sports will maintain the existing sales partnership surrounding the NCAA Corporate Champion and Partner program.  This program has grown from nine to 17 members since the previous deal was announced in 2010.

“CBS Sports and Turner are great partners for the NCAA and its membership” remarked Joseph R. Castiglione, director of athletics at the University of Oklahoma and current chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, “Having their long-term commitment ensures that March Madness will remain one of the preeminent television sports properties.”

President Barack Obama made his final four predictions on ESPN Wednesday morning (March 16), saying the Kansas Jayhawks would beat the North Carolina Tar Heels in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game.

He said the other two teams making the Final Four would be Michigan State and Texas A&M.

“The President was a Cinderella as a candidate eight years ago, but he has gone with the favorites in each year of his presidency,” said Katz of the presidential picks.

President Obama has made a pick every year since taking office, with a record of 1-6, only getting it right in 2009 when he chose North Carolina. Watch the video of today's picks here.

Led by Shabazz Napier (pictured), UConn put the finishing touches on the 2014 version of March Madness with a 60-54 over Kentucky in the title game, with CBS and Turner Sports netting the second best average viewership for the tourney since 2005.

CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV combined to average a 6.5 U.S. household rating and 10.5 million viewers per window, according to Nielsen data. That was down 3% from the 6.7 rating from the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship on the four networks, and off 2% from the 10.7 million watchers a year ago. Nevertheless, the 2014 deliveries were the tourney’s best since the 2004 competition.

The UConn-UK title tilt averaged a 12.4 rating and 21.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen fast national data, down 11% and 9%, respectively, from the 14.0 and 23.4 million watchers for Louisville’s tight win over Michigan. Despite the downturn, CBS’s April 7 telecast of the Huskies-Wildcats contest was the third largest National Championship Game audience of the past decade, behind the 23.9 million watchers for North Carolina over Illinois in 2005 and last year’s Cardinals-Wolverines matchup.

The 2014 tourney saw Turner step to the line for the first time with regional finals and Final Four coverage, scheduling that resulted in the four most-watched college basketball telecasts in cable history.

TBS scored a 5.8 national rating and 9.9 million viewers for Wisconsin’s one-point win over Arizona in the West regional final on March 29, which quickly trumped the 4.3 rating and 7.2 million viewers for Florida’s win over Dayton in the Elite Eight matchup earlier that day.

Those Nielsen marks were supplanted with Final Four action on April 5: UConn-Florida netted a 6.9 rating (8.2 cable mark) and 11.7 million watchers and then a 9.2 (11.0 cable) and 16.3 million watchers for Kentucky’s last-second win over Wisconsin.

Those deliveries were down from the 2013 Final Four, which aired on CBS. The 2013 early game between Wichita State and eventual champion Louisville drew 14.5 million viewers, 4% more than the corresponding 2012 contest. The second contest between Syracuse and Michigan grew 3% from 2012 with 17.1 million viewers.

This year's Final Four averaged 14 million viewers, an 11% decline from the 2013 matchups.

The 2014 Final Four game audiences reflected the combination of TBS’s main feed, as well as “Teamcasts” on TNT and truTV. Ads were sold across the telecasts, each of which had its own production and announce teams.

The Nielsen scorecard shows that the Wildcasts-Badgers contest drew 10.4 million viewers on TBS, 4.3 million for the UK teamcast on TNT and 1.56 million for the Wisconsin view on truTV.

For the opener, the count was 7.09 million on TBS, 3.7 million on TNT for Gators fans and 851,000 for Huskies’ supporters on truTV.

The 2015 version of March Madness – the fifth of CBS-Turner’s 14-year, $10.8 billion rights deal to the tourney – will see a repeat of this year’s lineup, relative to Turner presenting the Final Four and CBS airing the National Championship Game. Turner officials said decisions had not yet been made about whether the Teamcasts would return next year.