Mega March Madness

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Mega March Madness is a pay-per-view package covering games in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. It has been exclusive to DirecTV since 2002 and supplements the coverage from CBS Sports.

MMM subscribers can watch the tournament games not chosen for local broadcast on the CBS affiliate serving their area. The Mega March Madness Mix is the ability to watch 3 games at once all on the same screen. Game coverage is identical to that on the local stations, except that DirecTV promos replace local commercial breaks, there are no cut-ins for studio analysis of the other games in progress at about 12 minutes remaining in each half, and game coverage is not interrupted if another more compelling game is going on at the same time. In other words, this is a "constant feed."

Subscribers also receive a "mix channel" with all four game broadcasts on one screen. However, the game shown locally, which is blacked out on MMM, will be replaced by a blank screen and an advisory to tune to the CBS affiliate in the area. [March Madness 2008, did NOT do this and all 4 or 2 games were shown shown on the Mix channel, even the game being shown on the local feed]

The subscription price is $69 in one payment per year.

Another related service, March Madness on Demand, is a streaming video service first made available in 2006 to broadband computer users free of charge from CBS SportsLine.

In some local markets, local CBS affiliates broadcast all of the games on their digital subchannels, although cut-ins and switches of game coverage may still occur, and the multicast may be stopped temporarilly if a team of local interest is playing and a full-quality HDTV feed of the game is required.