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 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 two rounds of the tournament; CBS is the home for all Elite Eight, Final Four and the national championship games.
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 $11.99 (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. See what's new on Paramount Plus this month.
College basketball games on Paramount Plus
Here are the March Madness games that are streaming on Paramount Plus on Sunday, March 24:
- No. 10 Colorado vs No. 2 Marquette, 12:10 pm ET/9:10 am PT, CBS
- No. 8 Utah State vs No. 1 Purdue, 2:40 pm ET/11:40 am PT, CBS
- No. 12 James Madison vs No. 4 Duke, 5:15 pm ET/2:15 pm PT, CBS
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.
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.
