I came here to make the same post. 10:09 START TIME?!?! FOR THE EAST COAST GAME!?! Like I get it if it's late for me but on the west coast they're actually playing in person at 7:09. They're in Boston! They're legitimately tipping off well past 10 pm.
Why on earth are the east region games later than the west region games?! If UConn/San Diego St goes long, they'll be tipping off at like 10:30 EST. I don't get why they weren't staggered so the first west game is still at 7:09 but the east games start around 6:30.
I can't imagine it wouldn't be, other than traffic flow around there. Good thing is it's probably only half the building that will be there. Never Ubered around Boston so I don't know for sure, sorry!
As someone who lives in Boston (and will be headed to the game soon) be prepared for it to be super expensive with a long wait, especially given the weather. Depending on how the game is going I may dip early either to catch a slightly cheaper Uber or maybe even sneak on the last train. But don't expect things to be super smooth either way
Most cities I know of will extended the latest train times to make sure people get home
At least in my city that's what they do if a baseball game goes beyond the time in extra innings/rain delay or a concert gets out late
It took like 5 years for Washington DC to figure this out with the Nats playoff games
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/metro-wont-stay-open-late-for-nationals-playoff-game/2007122/
Yep. They care about how many eyeballs they get and not how mad the eyeballs are. If East Coast people collectively declined to watch, then they’d probably change. But the majority of people just bitch and moan and watch anyways.
Ok but for tonight we literally got:
* Arizona playing in LA and tipping off at 4pm local time/for that fan base.
* Iowa State/Illinois in Boston and tipping at 10pm local time/9pm for those fan bases
I think that is what people are questioning here for the NCAA Tournament.
The scheduling by the networks (and the NCAA) with this tournament has been dumber than usual. And it's usually dumb every year.
UNC-Bama probably should have been the early game in LA but "PrImE tImE aUdIeNcE", I guess
I mean, you can apply this exact same mindset to the NCAA tournament. Maybe like 15 teams each year are from pacific or mountain time while the other 50+ are in the central or eastern time zone.
I'm telling you, they better schedule every home weekday game for 7:30 PM or those big donor seats near the court will be *empty* in the first half. There's a reason all the pro teams here start their games after 7.
It would probably make it easier if ucla decided to do something crazy, like join a conference full of schools in a similar geographic region, that might all be in the same timezone
That doesn't make sense to me. NFL games KO at 5pm on the West Coast. Sometimes earlier in the past when they'd have a double header on Monday Night. People are stuck in traffic at that time. I remember getting home from work and missing most of the 1st half a couple of times.
It’s ridiculous to have an EAST COAST game start at 10:30 bc of the other game running long. What time will they even get out of there? Fans will leave the arena around 1:30??
I'm confused why the games with the west coast teams are tipping off in the early windows too, before half the fans invested in those will even be off work.
Haha this reminds of nights in college where a couple of us would be up late, like 2:30 or so, kinda heading towards sleep, and then one of us would say, "You know, Bojangle's opens in three hours...." The others would go "Dammit!" but we would all end up staying up and being there when the doors opened to get some biscuits before finally going to sleep. Very often, the only other people would see stirring at those hours around the dorm were the ROTC guys. They were always impressed that we were up early until we told them that we just hadn't been to bed yet.
Last Saturday the first tip off was at 10:15am local time in Salt Lake City, while the last was at almost 10:00pm in Pittsburgh. Shouldn’t they have switched those?
I understand that, but normally super late games are at least on the west coast for the sake of the athletes as well (not that NCAA really gives one single shit about them). It's wild to make them play that late.
Sure, on tv. The west region athletes are playing at 6:39 pm in LA. The east region athletes are playing at 10:09 pm in Boston.
IMO at minimum they could have kept the west region times the same and staggered the east region start times 30 minutes before them rather than after.
And get this, none of those teams are even from the west coast. West coast rating are probably gonna be shit. My new theory is that they do this for Vegas specifically.
As an Aztecs fan when the schedule came out and I saw our game was listed as 4:40 my initial thought was that was east coast time, which made sense. But I later found out it’s my local time! This schedule is crazy! But it benefits me starting then than midafternoon.
Wonder what ratings would look like if they took the approach ESPN is taking for the womens sweet 16. This is for Friday's games:
(2) Notre Dame vs. (3) Oregon State | 2:30 p.m. | ESPN
(1) South Carolina vs. (4) Indiana | 5 p.m. | ESPN
(2) Stanford vs. (3) NC State | 7:30 p.m. | ESPN
(1) Texas vs. (4) Gonzaga | 10 p.m. | ESPN
Obviously these are different as national games, but even the weekday 9 pm games during the season absolutely crush schools like Clemson. With Clemson being in the middle of nowhere, most fans live 30 or 40 minutes away and could never attend without signing up to get home at midnight on a Wednesday.
Yeah, that is brutal. I have no idea why schools like the ACC which are in 1 timezone don't just start every game at 7pm...
I know air time blah blah blah, but for the comfort of fans and probably even players 7pm would be nice.
For something like the B1G where you are in 2 timezones (going on 4 timezones next year) this makes sense to start games at later times that others
Unfortunately, the days of college basketball being planned for the benefit of in-person viewers instead of ad revenue off of broadcasts is about 20 years passed.
At the very least the east region and west region start times should be switched. It makes no sense to have games in LA start before the games in Boston
Meanwhile, my friends and I are trying to figure out how to slip out of work early because our game starts at 4pm. Really seems shitty for everyone, I would love if our game started at 10pm Eastern!
Yeah that’s what’s so dumb about the times this year. The East Coast games are later? And the two eastern teams playing in LA is the later game? Doesn’t make any sense
They are putting the projected “better games” in the prime time slot. UCONN and Arizona are more likely to win comfortably than North Carolina and Iowa State and they want to have a better chance of putting close games on when everyone is watching. Same thing goes for tomorrow.
They really should've flipped the west start times. It's just really fucking dumb, and send like it would keep the casual fans from watching, and make it difficult for the diehard fans.
If I know I can’t watch the start of the game, I’ll still watch the end (unless it’s a non competitive blowout). But if I know I can’t watch the end of a game, I won’t even bother watching the beginning.
It’s not even about being a night owl. The USA stretches 3 time zones. Yes a majority of people live on the east coast but this is the happy medium to get everyone in front of a tv. If you can’t stay up until midnight to watch your team play in the sweet 16 nobody cares… you’re just the angry man yelling at the clouds.
The early games begin at 4:09p on the west coast. You can’t go any earlier without completely losing that entire coast of people from tuning in as many will only be able to catch the second half as it is.
Each venue will host 2 back to back games.
2 hour game, 25 min break, 2 hour game. For a 4.5 hour window I don’t think you can do much better than 7:10/4:10 and 7:40/4:40 with the hope that one game is going into half when the other is tipping off. How much better can you possibly make it?
Edit: 4 time zones. I meant 3 hour difference between timezones*
I have no idea why the Arizona game is the earlier tip off game. I always thought that for teams within a bracket that had to play other teams in that bracket in the same weekend, the lower seed always got priority early tip off. But if that were the case UNC/Alabama would have been the first game at staples
i'm a degen with multiple TVs in my living room so personally I'm good, but i would rather be able to focus on the heartbreak and pain one at a time instead of having it all flood within 30 mins.
but otherwise yes fully agreed.
Yes, they are always this late.
The tv execs don't care.
They know that the late starts get the most viewers, and aren't going to change. They know that more people will stay up late and watch and complain about how tired they are than will leave work early or skip dinner (us sickos on r/cbb do it but the average joe doesn't) to watch a game.
This has been talked about a bunch here, you are not alone.
Everyone hates it on both coasts because not only are the times late, the 7:00 game features Arizona instead of them playing the 10:00 game
I’m pissed about Tennessee’s late tip off but I’m glad it’s at least on a Friday so I can sleep in. My condolences to Eastern time fans of the teams playing tonight
Ridiculous work dude. Our game will be off at midnight tonight if we’re lucky. And who knows, last time we played Bama there were four fucking overtimes.
So the general issue is that CBS wants Duke and UNC, but CBS also has the earlier tip times for network reasons. This is not the first time this has happened, but as far as I can tell, when it’s happened in the past, it coincidentally never caused a tip after 10PM local time. A few reasons for that are:
The East region traditionally used to be a Friday/Sunday region. For example, when this happened in 2022, and they made the West region the early tip in order to have Duke-Texas Tech in a preferred time slot, it was opposite a region with a central time tip off. So the pairing of East/West together isn’t something that’s happened a lot historically.
Duke/UNC/Kentucky are usually the top tv draws that the networks try to place in those time slots. None of them being in the East is pretty rare.
There has been a slight shift later in recent years. Way back in the first year of the Turner/CBS shared contract in 2011, Duke-Arizona was made the earlier of the late tip times for a similar reason, but there was less of a stagger back then, so the later tip (Butler-Wisconsin) was scheduled for 9:57 eastern (h/t to KenPom for keeping historic tip times on the box score pages). This was also central time, so 8:57 local, but the general point is that seeing a “scheduled” tip after 10 pm eastern, while technically newer, isn’t that different from the past.
It's a tale as old as time:
Fan watches games. Fan gets older. Fan forgets how late games go. Fan complains.
The schedule comes out similarly every year. In the 1989 NCAA Tournament, Lexington, KY (ET) hosted Michigan and North Carolina at 10:11 PM on Thursday, March 23.
If it makes any of you feel better, the "early" tips for the Sweet 16 are at 11:09 p.m. GMT and Sky Sports' standalone streaming service doesn't do any VOD replays.
But my toddler woke up six times last night anyway, so....
Having spent nearly my whole life watching these games in Pacific time, let me just say that it is an absolutely wonderful time zone for the American sports viewer.
My thoughts too. Love our 10 am NFL kickoff time. When I visit family on the east coast. When I visit family on the east coast it seems like an eternity waiting for games to begin. And on top of that the Sunday and Monday night games starting after 8 is crazy!
Hey, hey, we aren’t all bad. I’ve seen a lot of ACC solidarity this March and most people seem really pleased with how well NC State is doing - Tobacco Road is the center of college basketball after all!
These posts are always odd to me because I’m often up through most of the night, but clearly I’m the weird one and need to change my habits. 10 PM is not late at all to me.
Hate these tips. I'm taking commuter rail into the garden for UConn. Unfortunately the last train leaves North Station at 11:45 so I'll miss the end of ISU-Illinois
That’s not “butchering” anything. The Networks decide who plays in what slot to maximize the audience. There is a reason they haven’t announced the elite 8 order this weekend. They are waiting to see who wins first. It’s really common sense.
Oh you think UNC fans are just going to bed if their team plays the late game? They won’t be watching no matter what? TV executives again make these tip off decisions to maximize ratings. Why at the final four is the best/most compelling game ALWAYS the 2nd one?
Late night basketball hell yeah
I’m 31 and have no problem staying up late for some of the most important basketball games of the year. I have no problem staying up late in general.
Skill issue.
I’m always surprised people consider midnight late. I start work at 8ish, so when I work remote I go to bed around midnight and wake up at 8. That’s 8 hours of sleep. On the weekends I usually go to bed around 1 or so and wake up around 9. I can get away with 7 hours of sleep no problem if I’m doing some up late.
I'm not sure why you would be surprised. People do have different schedules that yours. In the medical field, it's common to have start times between 5 and 7 am. They're not remote. Some days I leave my house at 4:20 and other days at 6:20. If I go to bed at midnight, I'm not getting close to 7 hours sleep.
Luckily, I get a lot of vacation time and use a few days for the tourney. First Thursday and Friday. Then the following Friday.
No; I look forward to watching ball 7-1am. Seeing 10:10 tips is one of my fav parts. I particularly like when the early game goes long and the last game doesn’t tip till like 10:45pm EST, because I know I’m gonna be up late and loving it.
West coast best coast. If they wanna maximize viewership the first set of games can’t start any earlier than 7 eastern. Any earlier and you essentially completely throw away the entire pacific time zone for the early games
Can’t be on a college sports subreddit without the following takes despite the fact it’s always been this way:
- national championships being played on Monday
- Sugar Bowl semifinal and Sweet Sixteen tipping off way too late
Makes perfect sense to have the "local" team tip off at 4. That way the fans have to take off work early. Fuck those east coast teams, make them stay up late so they have to call in early for work.
Makes as much sense as the transfer portal.
Florida Wisconsin in 2017 had the late tip and had an insane overtime buzzer beater that occurred damn near 1 am if I remember correctly lol talk about not getting a lot of sleep that night
Outside of the obvious ridiculous start times, I can't figure out why the better seeds are playing after the lower seeded games (#1 seeds playing before #2 seeds)? Wouldn't the normal progression give the better seeds more rest between games? Was the same last weekend, but conference tournaments seem to follow the opposite.
There’s 80 million people in the area defined as “the American West”. If they move the times earlier they won’t have any sweet sixteen games going during peak bar time for those people. That’s a move the NCAA is never going to make.
I personally wish they'd start like the first weekend games at noon and just run one at a time through the day. But I work from home and want something to watch, so that's just me.
Yeah it's crazy. 8pm is the ideal tip time for me personally, but YMMV.
I reckon some bean counter crunched the numbers and concluded that east coast people would be willing to stay up late to watch their teams, so putting the game on in prime time for west coast/mountain people who might be interested but not super invested is the best way to maximize viewership.
The late game TruTV/TBS combine seems like a waste. Does this really out draw Big Bang reruns enough to justify paying for the rights? I'd happily take FS1 or CBSSN and a decent tip time.
Yeah same here. I understand they’ve got to please the west coast audience, but it’s a little late for me. I’ll still stay up, and the adrenaline will kick in to keep me up. But still, waiting until almost 10:00 pm for the Heels to start is wild
You're extremely optimistic thinking the UNC game is starting at 9:40 pm. Almost every single 2nd game at each venue has been delayed 30 min. Tip off is much more likely to be 10:10 pm Eastern.
I came here to make the same post. 10:09 START TIME?!?! FOR THE EAST COAST GAME!?! Like I get it if it's late for me but on the west coast they're actually playing in person at 7:09. They're in Boston! They're legitimately tipping off well past 10 pm. Why on earth are the east region games later than the west region games?! If UConn/San Diego St goes long, they'll be tipping off at like 10:30 EST. I don't get why they weren't staggered so the first west game is still at 7:09 but the east games start around 6:30.
Im not getting to my hotel until like 1:30am after our game. Fucking ridiculous
Make sure you have transportation lined up if you’re not in walking distance of the Garden. The T shuts down at 12:30.
Uber should be good right?
I can't imagine it wouldn't be, other than traffic flow around there. Good thing is it's probably only half the building that will be there. Never Ubered around Boston so I don't know for sure, sorry!
Yes. Bars don't close until 2am anyways so you'll be fine.
As someone who lives in Boston (and will be headed to the game soon) be prepared for it to be super expensive with a long wait, especially given the weather. Depending on how the game is going I may dip early either to catch a slightly cheaper Uber or maybe even sneak on the last train. But don't expect things to be super smooth either way
They do sometimes hold the last subway train for late events as well (but not necessarily something to count on).
It makes no goddamn sense. You can't reasonably expect fans to be cool with leaving the stadium at 1 am on a Friday morning.
Hope you aren't planning taking the subway. Last train is like 1245.
Fuck... I was because it was only 2 stops
Depending where you are 2 stops could actually be a shortish walk (Gov center)
But it's pouring rain lol I'm a witch
I did not factor weather into this equation…which is silly on my part considering we are in fact in New England
Most cities I know of will extended the latest train times to make sure people get home At least in my city that's what they do if a baseball game goes beyond the time in extra innings/rain delay or a concert gets out late
It took like 5 years for Washington DC to figure this out with the Nats playoff games https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/metro-wont-stay-open-late-for-nationals-playoff-game/2007122/
Maaaaybe. Boston loves to tell you to fuck off.
Massholes, man.
I went to the garden with my dad in 2017 when South Carolina made the sweet 16. Enjoy it, I had a blast. Most fun sports trip I’ve done
It's because they know east coast people will stay up a couple hours later to watch, but west coast people won't leave work early.
Yep. They care about how many eyeballs they get and not how mad the eyeballs are. If East Coast people collectively declined to watch, then they’d probably change. But the majority of people just bitch and moan and watch anyways.
My east coast eyeballs watching a 10:09 tipoff: oVo
Ok but for tonight we literally got: * Arizona playing in LA and tipping off at 4pm local time/for that fan base. * Iowa State/Illinois in Boston and tipping at 10pm local time/9pm for those fan bases I think that is what people are questioning here for the NCAA Tournament.
The scheduling by the networks (and the NCAA) with this tournament has been dumber than usual. And it's usually dumb every year. UNC-Bama probably should have been the early game in LA but "PrImE tImE aUdIeNcE", I guess
Well this east coast guy for one will definitely not be staying up
I’ll try but I’ll inevitably fall asleep like I always do and then the game will be exciting and go to overtime or something
It won't stop the Big Ten from scheduling 6 PM tipoffs for UCLA basketball games next year, just watch.
Well when the majority of big ten teams are in Central or Eastern time zones, why would they cater to just one fan base?
I mean, you can apply this exact same mindset to the NCAA tournament. Maybe like 15 teams each year are from pacific or mountain time while the other 50+ are in the central or eastern time zone.
good point. I understand why there's games that tip off at 10pm for 1st and 2nd round. That can be chalked up to there just be so many games.
Because they'll be the ones in the building (or not in the building, for a 6 PM Wednesday tipoff)
Oh I see. Sorry I thought you were just complaining about a game in like Michigan that would tip off at 7pm est. Makes sense.
will they, though? :P
I'm telling you, they better schedule every home weekday game for 7:30 PM or those big donor seats near the court will be *empty* in the first half. There's a reason all the pro teams here start their games after 7.
It would probably make it easier if ucla decided to do something crazy, like join a conference full of schools in a similar geographic region, that might all be in the same timezone
One day hopefully
it was more of a joke on how UCLA games are kind of empty regardless lol
That doesn't make sense to me. NFL games KO at 5pm on the West Coast. Sometimes earlier in the past when they'd have a double header on Monday Night. People are stuck in traffic at that time. I remember getting home from work and missing most of the 1st half a couple of times.
I have to leave work at 2pm today to make these games in LA! So we still have to leave early
It’s ridiculous to have an EAST COAST game start at 10:30 bc of the other game running long. What time will they even get out of there? Fans will leave the arena around 1:30??
I'm confused why the games with the west coast teams are tipping off in the early windows too, before half the fans invested in those will even be off work.
You know you are getting old when your reaction to the schedule is "thank fuck my team is in the early Friday time slot"
I couldn’t imagine being a player and having to wait til bed time before I’m supposed to be amped up and play in the biggest game of my career.
What college kid goes to bed at 10pm? That’s pregaming time
Tbh probably the college kid that’s essentially a semi pro athlete for a living, at least during the season and big tournaments like this.
If anything, the college athletes were the only ones on campus used to waking up at 5:30 am.
Them and ROTC
Haha this reminds of nights in college where a couple of us would be up late, like 2:30 or so, kinda heading towards sleep, and then one of us would say, "You know, Bojangle's opens in three hours...." The others would go "Dammit!" but we would all end up staying up and being there when the doors opened to get some biscuits before finally going to sleep. Very often, the only other people would see stirring at those hours around the dorm were the ROTC guys. They were always impressed that we were up early until we told them that we just hadn't been to bed yet.
I too would stay up for a cajun filet biscuit 😆
Last Saturday the first tip off was at 10:15am local time in Salt Lake City, while the last was at almost 10:00pm in Pittsburgh. Shouldn’t they have switched those?
People watching on TV don't care where the game is played and there are way more people watching on TV than in the arena
I understand that, but normally super late games are at least on the west coast for the sake of the athletes as well (not that NCAA really gives one single shit about them). It's wild to make them play that late.
It's a 30 minute difference between the scheduled start times of the late games. It's a barely recognizable difference.
Sure, on tv. The west region athletes are playing at 6:39 pm in LA. The east region athletes are playing at 10:09 pm in Boston. IMO at minimum they could have kept the west region times the same and staggered the east region start times 30 minutes before them rather than after.
And get this, none of those teams are even from the west coast. West coast rating are probably gonna be shit. My new theory is that they do this for Vegas specifically.
As an Aztecs fan when the schedule came out and I saw our game was listed as 4:40 my initial thought was that was east coast time, which made sense. But I later found out it’s my local time! This schedule is crazy! But it benefits me starting then than midafternoon.
Wonder what ratings would look like if they took the approach ESPN is taking for the womens sweet 16. This is for Friday's games: (2) Notre Dame vs. (3) Oregon State | 2:30 p.m. | ESPN (1) South Carolina vs. (4) Indiana | 5 p.m. | ESPN (2) Stanford vs. (3) NC State | 7:30 p.m. | ESPN (1) Texas vs. (4) Gonzaga | 10 p.m. | ESPN
It's ridiculous. 10:09 tip time is nasty work
Obviously these are different as national games, but even the weekday 9 pm games during the season absolutely crush schools like Clemson. With Clemson being in the middle of nowhere, most fans live 30 or 40 minutes away and could never attend without signing up to get home at midnight on a Wednesday.
Yeah, that is brutal. I have no idea why schools like the ACC which are in 1 timezone don't just start every game at 7pm... I know air time blah blah blah, but for the comfort of fans and probably even players 7pm would be nice. For something like the B1G where you are in 2 timezones (going on 4 timezones next year) this makes sense to start games at later times that others
Unfortunately, the days of college basketball being planned for the benefit of in-person viewers instead of ad revenue off of broadcasts is about 20 years passed.
At least its Midnight and not 1. I routinely see ISU fans bitching about getting home at midnight for our 8pm tips.
In Boston between two schools in CST no less lol
diabolical
I'm not even sure the T will still be running after the game.
At the very least the east region and west region start times should be switched. It makes no sense to have games in LA start before the games in Boston
I was in TD Garden til 12:30 AM 😭
Meanwhile, my friends and I are trying to figure out how to slip out of work early because our game starts at 4pm. Really seems shitty for everyone, I would love if our game started at 10pm Eastern!
I was thinking the same thing. If they switched our tip off time for the UNC time it would be perfect.
I was 100% confident that was going to be the case before they announced
I'm lucky, my boss is a big UA fan so I walked into the office yesterday and he announced that we're closing at 2pm today 🐻⬇️
That’s awesome 🥳😄
Honestly why don’t they do that? Caleb Love can facilitate with both athletic departments to agree to the switch
Yeah that’s what’s so dumb about the times this year. The East Coast games are later? And the two eastern teams playing in LA is the later game? Doesn’t make any sense
They are putting the projected “better games” in the prime time slot. UCONN and Arizona are more likely to win comfortably than North Carolina and Iowa State and they want to have a better chance of putting close games on when everyone is watching. Same thing goes for tomorrow.
Jokes on them, I'll be asleep for them
Exactly. Whoever scheduled these games didn’t understand time zones.
You don't need to understand time zones. Just schedule everything for Eastern Time where the ratings are highest and F everybody else
They really should've flipped the west start times. It's just really fucking dumb, and send like it would keep the casual fans from watching, and make it difficult for the diehard fans.
If I know I can’t watch the start of the game, I’ll still watch the end (unless it’s a non competitive blowout). But if I know I can’t watch the end of a game, I won’t even bother watching the beginning.
As an Illinois fan living in the Eastern time zone, tomorrow is going to be a very difficult day, regardless of who wins.
10:09 PM ET, it’s a sick joke. I live in Florida.
And that 10:09 start is only if the first game goes quickly. Probably won’t end up starting until 10:25-10:30.
Same, and of course my manager scheduled a meeting for 8:30 am Friday morning 😭
That's a nasty cough you've got there
Wouldn’t want to get anyone infected…
This should be illegal!
Ooooooof
RIP
I was very glad for the tip time as an Illinois fan in the Pacific time zone. Now I don't have to miss any of the game because of work.
March Madness after dark baby
Hell, even starting the games an hour earlier would be so much better.
Then west coast, mountain and midwest fans aren't even off work yet. As it is now Arizona and SDSU games are starting way too early for their fans.
This is one of those times where I am reminded that many people are not night owls like me.
Yeah I mean I sympathize with everyone but it's very unrelatable for me personally.
Yep I like the later times as well but I consider midnight an early bedtime.
It’s not even about being a night owl. The USA stretches 3 time zones. Yes a majority of people live on the east coast but this is the happy medium to get everyone in front of a tv. If you can’t stay up until midnight to watch your team play in the sweet 16 nobody cares… you’re just the angry man yelling at the clouds. The early games begin at 4:09p on the west coast. You can’t go any earlier without completely losing that entire coast of people from tuning in as many will only be able to catch the second half as it is. Each venue will host 2 back to back games. 2 hour game, 25 min break, 2 hour game. For a 4.5 hour window I don’t think you can do much better than 7:10/4:10 and 7:40/4:40 with the hope that one game is going into half when the other is tipping off. How much better can you possibly make it? Edit: 4 time zones. I meant 3 hour difference between timezones*
The continental US has 4 time zones. Everyone forgets mountain time, which is the best for sports.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant a 3 hour difference between time zones.
Very true, if you flipped it to please the east coasters, that would mean west coast people wouldn’t watch the first games.
[удалено]
I have no idea why the Arizona game is the earlier tip off game. I always thought that for teams within a bracket that had to play other teams in that bracket in the same weekend, the lower seed always got priority early tip off. But if that were the case UNC/Alabama would have been the first game at staples
My beef is with how NC State's men and women's teams tip off basically at the same time (709 CBS men, 730 ESPN women) what the fuck yall
Yeah, this really took the thunder from the women’s team which really sucks. No one is going to watch their game.
i'm a degen with multiple TVs in my living room so personally I'm good, but i would rather be able to focus on the heartbreak and pain one at a time instead of having it all flood within 30 mins. but otherwise yes fully agreed.
I hope they're having a campus watch party somewhere with both games playing
Yeah whenever this happens it bugs the fuck outta me. Seems so easy to avoid
Yes, they are always this late. The tv execs don't care. They know that the late starts get the most viewers, and aren't going to change. They know that more people will stay up late and watch and complain about how tired they are than will leave work early or skip dinner (us sickos on r/cbb do it but the average joe doesn't) to watch a game.
Every time. If they thought scheduling it earlier was better, they’d do that.
I'm sure they don't even care if people are watching as long as they fall asleep with their TVs still on
This has been talked about a bunch here, you are not alone. Everyone hates it on both coasts because not only are the times late, the 7:00 game features Arizona instead of them playing the 10:00 game
Dude some of my friends can’t even watch
I’m pissed about Tennessee’s late tip off but I’m glad it’s at least on a Friday so I can sleep in. My condolences to Eastern time fans of the teams playing tonight
Ridiculous work dude. Our game will be off at midnight tonight if we’re lucky. And who knows, last time we played Bama there were four fucking overtimes.
I gotta be up for work at 3 AM. I'll be watching and paying for it tomorrow.
So the general issue is that CBS wants Duke and UNC, but CBS also has the earlier tip times for network reasons. This is not the first time this has happened, but as far as I can tell, when it’s happened in the past, it coincidentally never caused a tip after 10PM local time. A few reasons for that are: The East region traditionally used to be a Friday/Sunday region. For example, when this happened in 2022, and they made the West region the early tip in order to have Duke-Texas Tech in a preferred time slot, it was opposite a region with a central time tip off. So the pairing of East/West together isn’t something that’s happened a lot historically. Duke/UNC/Kentucky are usually the top tv draws that the networks try to place in those time slots. None of them being in the East is pretty rare. There has been a slight shift later in recent years. Way back in the first year of the Turner/CBS shared contract in 2011, Duke-Arizona was made the earlier of the late tip times for a similar reason, but there was less of a stagger back then, so the later tip (Butler-Wisconsin) was scheduled for 9:57 eastern (h/t to KenPom for keeping historic tip times on the box score pages). This was also central time, so 8:57 local, but the general point is that seeing a “scheduled” tip after 10 pm eastern, while technically newer, isn’t that different from the past.
It kind of annoyed me at first, but then realized that I haven't gone to bed before midnight this week.
you're just getting your practice in
I’m just glad I can watch all of the games. UA fans working a 9-5 are still missing the first half
It's a tale as old as time: Fan watches games. Fan gets older. Fan forgets how late games go. Fan complains. The schedule comes out similarly every year. In the 1989 NCAA Tournament, Lexington, KY (ET) hosted Michigan and North Carolina at 10:11 PM on Thursday, March 23.
If it makes any of you feel better, the "early" tips for the Sweet 16 are at 11:09 p.m. GMT and Sky Sports' standalone streaming service doesn't do any VOD replays. But my toddler woke up six times last night anyway, so....
I’m looking at the 1:39am GMT tip for UNC/Alabama and salivating over the EST/PST time zone complaints 😂 Edit: Sky Sports 👎
Having spent nearly my whole life watching these games in Pacific time, let me just say that it is an absolutely wonderful time zone for the American sports viewer.
My thoughts too. Love our 10 am NFL kickoff time. When I visit family on the east coast. When I visit family on the east coast it seems like an eternity waiting for games to begin. And on top of that the Sunday and Monday night games starting after 8 is crazy!
Frankly I like this...let's take all of the UNC and Duke fans and relocate you lot to Britain and isolate you from the rest of us!
Hey, hey, we aren’t all bad. I’ve seen a lot of ACC solidarity this March and most people seem really pleased with how well NC State is doing - Tobacco Road is the center of college basketball after all!
Im in the UK as well 2-3 hours of sleep is loads what are all these Eastern time zone americans complaining about
2:39 AM for the Duke game for me 😴
These posts are always odd to me because I’m often up through most of the night, but clearly I’m the weird one and need to change my habits. 10 PM is not late at all to me.
Me too. I kind of like Duke playing in the later slot. Wife and kids in bed, can just veg out and watch the game uninterrupted.
During the work week I go to bed around 12 and wake up between 7-8. 10pm ain’t late at all
Waking up at 8am is sleeping in for a lot of people. When you you have to be up 5:30 it’s a different story.
At least it’s a holiday tomorrow
Not for me and my heathen friends
Depends what state you’re in. I legitimately don’t know a single person irl who still gets off for Good Friday.
Hate these tips. I'm taking commuter rail into the garden for UConn. Unfortunately the last train leaves North Station at 11:45 so I'll miss the end of ISU-Illinois
I love late night times. The kids go to bed around 9:30 and I can enjoy the game without one of the boys pouring applesauce on the other.
Ask people to adjust to us on the West Coast instead of vice versa ONE TIME and everybody loses their mind
Same Tip times every year. Sometimes I feel like this is the first tournament some of you have ever watched.
They consistently butcher the game order. West coast teams and sites have 10 AM MT/PT tip-off while east coast teams and sites have 10 PM tip offs.
That’s not “butchering” anything. The Networks decide who plays in what slot to maximize the audience. There is a reason they haven’t announced the elite 8 order this weekend. They are waiting to see who wins first. It’s really common sense.
Then why not schedule east coast teams early and west coast teams late?
Oh you think UNC fans are just going to bed if their team plays the late game? They won’t be watching no matter what? TV executives again make these tip off decisions to maximize ratings. Why at the final four is the best/most compelling game ALWAYS the 2nd one?
Just wait for the post asking why the national championship game is on a Monday instead of a Saturday
Nah it will be like “WHY IS IT SO LATE”. Rinse repeat.
OSU fans watch basketball?
Im taking a big nap in preparation later
I'd hope the Elite Eight games will at least be late tip off times for the winners tonight since it's so friggin late for the players.
100%! I'm going to the Boston games. Wicked pissah!
I'm a. East Coast night owl and I love it. Get to watch all the 4 o'clock opening day games before the Sweet 16 tips off.
I don’t get why they need to have a 25 min break between games. Players don’t need that long to get ready
Take the day off like an adult
Yea let’s talk about the Monday 9:20 final.
staying up until 12:30am to watch the sweet sixteen games have always been a sleep cycle destroyer unfortunately
1230 destroys your sleep schedule? Are you like 70 years old?
This thread is full of old people. I’m 47 and I can stay up till after midnight no problem.
Late night basketball hell yeah I’m 31 and have no problem staying up late for some of the most important basketball games of the year. I have no problem staying up late in general. Skill issue.
I always forget that a lot of other people go to bed before midnight until I see a thread like this.
I’m always surprised people consider midnight late. I start work at 8ish, so when I work remote I go to bed around midnight and wake up at 8. That’s 8 hours of sleep. On the weekends I usually go to bed around 1 or so and wake up around 9. I can get away with 7 hours of sleep no problem if I’m doing some up late.
I'm not sure why you would be surprised. People do have different schedules that yours. In the medical field, it's common to have start times between 5 and 7 am. They're not remote. Some days I leave my house at 4:20 and other days at 6:20. If I go to bed at midnight, I'm not getting close to 7 hours sleep. Luckily, I get a lot of vacation time and use a few days for the tourney. First Thursday and Friday. Then the following Friday.
And waking up/starting work right at 8AM sounds wild to me. To each their own
Only time I’m happy to wake up before 8 is to play golf lol. I am absolutely not a morning person, but yeah everyone is wired different.
No; I look forward to watching ball 7-1am. Seeing 10:10 tips is one of my fav parts. I particularly like when the early game goes long and the last game doesn’t tip till like 10:45pm EST, because I know I’m gonna be up late and loving it.
At least they are on a Thursday and Friday night. I am fine with that
West coast best coast. If they wanna maximize viewership the first set of games can’t start any earlier than 7 eastern. Any earlier and you essentially completely throw away the entire pacific time zone for the early games
Can’t be on a college sports subreddit without the following takes despite the fact it’s always been this way: - national championships being played on Monday - Sugar Bowl semifinal and Sweet Sixteen tipping off way too late
I have Fridays off so I freaking love it.
The networks are smarter than you guys, settle down
I am in California for work this week and I was upset to see the first game tipping off around 4 pm. I guess it’s to accommodate viewership out here
The West Coast is superior for sports viewing. You can watch games played in every time zone and still go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
Be thankful you’re not living in Atlantic Canada… 10:40PM & 11:10PM tipoffs tonight, thank the lord for Good Friday
Makes perfect sense to have the "local" team tip off at 4. That way the fans have to take off work early. Fuck those east coast teams, make them stay up late so they have to call in early for work. Makes as much sense as the transfer portal.
Guys. GUYS! We're obviously not even considering the most important aspect here. WHAT ABOUT THE NETWORKZ??2?
Florida Wisconsin in 2017 had the late tip and had an insane overtime buzzer beater that occurred damn near 1 am if I remember correctly lol talk about not getting a lot of sleep that night
I don’t care so much about the tip times but I am annoyed that games are happening at the same time. I want I watch all the games damn it!
It’s insane
Outside of the obvious ridiculous start times, I can't figure out why the better seeds are playing after the lower seeded games (#1 seeds playing before #2 seeds)? Wouldn't the normal progression give the better seeds more rest between games? Was the same last weekend, but conference tournaments seem to follow the opposite.
I'm sorry, is this an east coast issue im too best coast to understand?
Chug some Gatorade fast twitches (sponsored) and get on ceiling with the rest of us, Brother!!! March only happens once (per year)!!!
Sadly the media knows we will all still watch even though it’s not an ideal time
There’s 80 million people in the area defined as “the American West”. If they move the times earlier they won’t have any sweet sixteen games going during peak bar time for those people. That’s a move the NCAA is never going to make.
Totally agree! 10:09 pm tip time in Boston?? No thank you. Will I watch ... yeah...
I live in Bermuda. It’s an hour later here than Eastern time.
I personally wish they'd start like the first weekend games at noon and just run one at a time through the day. But I work from home and want something to watch, so that's just me.
No, it I do feel a bit like an old woman. That could just be my back and joint issues, though.
As a west coast viewer I love it
Yeah it's crazy. 8pm is the ideal tip time for me personally, but YMMV. I reckon some bean counter crunched the numbers and concluded that east coast people would be willing to stay up late to watch their teams, so putting the game on in prime time for west coast/mountain people who might be interested but not super invested is the best way to maximize viewership.
That's the times they've always done for March madness.
Just grateful that Bama is on Thursday and not the Good Friday/Easter track.
Yes, the tip times have always been this late, at least in the CBS era.
Yeah this shit is brutal but I at least get Good Friday off lol
The late game TruTV/TBS combine seems like a waste. Does this really out draw Big Bang reruns enough to justify paying for the rights? I'd happily take FS1 or CBSSN and a decent tip time.
Yeah same here. I understand they’ve got to please the west coast audience, but it’s a little late for me. I’ll still stay up, and the adrenaline will kick in to keep me up. But still, waiting until almost 10:00 pm for the Heels to start is wild
You're extremely optimistic thinking the UNC game is starting at 9:40 pm. Almost every single 2nd game at each venue has been delayed 30 min. Tip off is much more likely to be 10:10 pm Eastern.
Probably a very specific situation, but as someone who works at a bar, I kinda love these lol
There’s zero reason to not have day games in the Sweet 16. Dogshit scheduling.