What's On This Weekend in TV Sports (March 20-21)

March Madness will take place in 2021
March Madness tournament first and second round action takes place this weekend (Image credit: press)

 The NCAA March Madness men's college basketball tournament overshadows and otherwise busy weekend of live sports programming.

First round action of the tournament continues Saturday beginning at noon and runs throughout the day across networks ESPN, CBS, tru TV, TBS and TNT. Second round coverage launches on Sunday with eight games slated throughout the day.

The Women’s college basketball tournament kicks off on Sunday with first round coverage on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN2 and ABC.

Auto racing events will speed up this weekend with NASCAR and Xfinity races on FS1 and IMSA 12 hours of Sebring coverage on NBCSN. Fox will air the NASCAR QuikTrip500 race on Sunday. 

The Six Nations rugby tournament enters its "Super Saturday" action Saturday on NBC with the England and Ireland match. In addition, CNBC will carry the Italy-Scotland match and NBCSN will air the Wales-France game.

On the combat sports front, ESPN will offer a UFC fight card featuring a middleweight main event between Derek Brunson and Kevin Holland, while ESPN will offer a Saturday matinee boxing match between light heavyweights Artur Beterbiev and Adam Deines.  DAZN will distribute the Vergil Ortiz Jr.-Maurice Hooker welterweight fight, as well as the Lawrence Okolie-Krzysztof Glowacki cruiserweight fight.

NBC and Golf Network will air final coverage of the PGA Honda Classic Sunday.

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.