It is March and the Madness is just around the corner! The 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament gets underway this week as the First Four kick things off on Tuesday, March 18, before the official first round begins on Thursday, March 20. As in years past, games will be played on TNT, TBS, and truTV, as well as CBS. With that in mind, we have put together our recommendation for how to watch every game of the tournament at the lowest possible price! Keep reading to see how you can stream the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on the cheap.

Key Details:

• TNT, TBS, and truTV are available in Sling TV’s Orange plan.
• CBS can be streamed live with a Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscription.
• Thanks to a limited-time Sling deal, you can watch this bundle for only $36 for your first month.

How to stream the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament

As mentioned above, the 2025 Men’s March Madness tournament will play out on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV. That means fans will need a live TV streaming service with access to all four channels, or a way to work around their absence.

Sling TV doesn’t carry CBS, which is inconvenient since it’s by far the cheapest way to stream TBS, TNT, and truTV. There is an easy workaround, however, and we’ll fill you in on the details below.

What’s the cheapest live TV streaming service for watching the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament?

Sling TV offers TNT and TBS both of its base packages, Sling Blue and Sling Orange. Normally, truTV is only available in the Sling Blue plan, but the streamer confirmed to The Streamable last week that it would include the channel in its Orange package as well during the first week of the Men’s Tournament. Both Sling Orange and Blue start at $46 per month individually, or you can add up the channels of both services in the combined Sling Orange and Blue plan for $61.

Going with Sling Orange will get you all games on TNT, TBS, and truTV, as well as 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball games on ESPN channels. That’s a huge amount of college basketball, even though Sling TV doesn’t carry CBS anywhere around the United States (more on that below).

It’s also worth mentioning that Sling is offering 50% off a new customer’s first month of service for a limited time. So, if you’ve never signed up for the service before, or meet other “new customer” qualifiers, you can watch a huge selection of games from the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on TNT, TBS, and truTV for only $23.

How can you watch the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games on CBS?

With all games on TNT, TBS, and truTV taken care of by Sling TV, the only ones your low-cost bundle is currently missing are the games airing on CBS. Fortunately, you can take care of that with a subscription to Paramount+ with SHOWTIME. This is the ad-free tier of the Paramount+ streaming service, which also carries a live stream of your local CBS station in all markets, meaning that you can watch all live sporting events shown on that channel.

Paramount+ with SHOWTIME costs $13 per month and includes the on-demand libraries of Paramount+ and SHOWTIME. Every on-demand title streams without ads, and Paramount+ carries other live sports like UEFA Champions League soccer, as well as the NFL during football season.

What’s the cost of Sling TV and Paramount+ combined?

Let’s do some quick math here. If your first month of Sling TV is $23 (as a new customer), and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME costs $13 per month, your combined price for both will add up to just $36. Since neither tournament lasts a full month, you will only have to pay for one month of service for each streamer to watch Men’s March Madness.

At $36 for both services, this combo is a great way to save money on your March Madness viewing arrangements this year. It’s far cheaper than a subscription to Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV would be, with both of those services coming in at $83 per month. Even if you’ve tried Sling TV before and don’t get the first-month discount that new subscribers can access, the Sling/Paramount+ combo is still your cheapest option to watch all games, at a price of $59 per month.

Sign up for Sling TV and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME now and watch the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament for a great discount!