How to watch March Madness on Paramount Plus

March Madness is here and college basketball fans are ready to hunker down and watch as many games as possible to cheer on their teams, see how their brackets hold up and find out what Cinderella teams emerge from this year's field.

While March Madness airs on multiple TV networks and has a couple of online viewing options, one of the main ones is Paramount Plus. The streaming service, which helps differentiate itself from other services with its lineup of live sports, should be on your radar for ways to watch March Madness, but it is not a one-stop shop.

Paramount Plus is only streaming March Madness games that air on CBS; so if the game you want to watch is airing on TBS, TNT or TruTV, then you can't watch it on Paramount Plus. That mostly impacts the first few rounds of the tournament; CBS is the home for all of the Final Four and the national championship games.

• Sign up for Paramount Plus

But just how can you watch the March Madness games that are on CBS on Paramount Plus. We've got everything you need to know on that.

How to watch March Madness on Paramount Plus

Here's the deal with March Madness and Paramount Plus: you can watch some of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament games on Paramount Plus thanks to its live stream of your local CBS affiliate, but you need to be a subscriber to the Paramount Plus with Showtime, which costs $12.99 per month (but doesn't feature ads).

Paramount Plus is available on every major streaming platform. That includes Paramount Plus on Roku and it also means you can watch Paramount Plus on Amazon Fire TV, on Apple TV, Android TV, Google TV, smart TV systems and on the web.

As well as live sports, Paramount Plus also is the exclusive home to original series, including Star Trek: Picard, Yellowstone prequels 1883 and 1923, Wolf Pack and more; plus it offers a full library of classic movies and TV shows.

College basketball games on Paramount Plus

As March Madness continues, here's a look at the upcoming tournament games that will be available on CBS (some game times are subject to change):

Friday, March 28

• 6-seed Ole Miss vs 2-seed Michigan State, 7:09 pm ET/4:09 pm PT
• 5-seed Michigan vs 1-seed Auburn, 9:39 pm ET/6:39 pm PT

How to watch all the March Madness games that aren't on CBS

The majority of both the first and second rounds of the NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament aren't on CBS, and that means they're not available on Paramount Plus.

So how to watch them?

Sling TV is going to be your least expensive option. And more specifically, the Sling Blue plan. It includes TBS, TNT and truTV, all of which you'll need to watch all the other games. What you probably won't get, however, is your local CBS affiliate.

If you've got to have everything all in one bundle — CBS, TruTV, TNT and TBS — then you probably want to look at a service like Hulu With Live TV, which should be able to accommodate everything. It comes with full access to the Hulu on-demand library.

You can also stream March Madness games airing on TBS, TNT and TruTV live on Max.

How to watch March Madness anywhere in the world

If you finds yourself outside of the US but wanting to watch March Madness, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) can help if there is no easy way to catch the action.

A VPN lets you get around the usual digital barriers by changing your IP address, meaning you can watch events like March Madness as you would in your home country. Our favorite is NordVPN, which is the No. 1-rated VPN in the world right now according to our sister site, TechRadar.

NordVPN is one of the simplest and most affordable ways to watch what you want, from wherever you want to watch it.

It's straightforward and easy to use, has great security, is available on loads of streaming devices and, best of all, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out 100% risk-free. Give it a go.