Ready for the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? See All Streaming Options for Watching March Madness Without Cable
Live TV streaming platforms as well as on-demand platforms will be carrying March Madness games this year, and we’ll break down your best choices for watching.
March Madness 2024 is nearly here! The 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament begins play on Tuesday, March 19 with the eight-team first round. The traditional 64-team bracket gets in on the action beginning on Thursday, March 21. There is a wide range of options for watching the tournament this year, including one that was not available in 2023. The Streamable will run down all your choices for watching March Madness in 2024, letting you make the best choice for your budget and game-viewing needs.
- Viewers can watch NCAA tournament games on four live-streaming services.
- Two on-demand streaming services will offer March Madness games.
- Fans with cable or satellite can watch via March Madness Live using TV Everywhere credentials to log in.
How to Stream the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament
There are several ways for cord-cutters to stream the 2024 NCAA March Madness tournament. Games from the tournament will stream on CBS, TNT, TBS, and truTV, a split broadcasting arrangement that has been in place since 2011. Live TV streaming services, such as DIRECTV STREAM, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV, will all carry at least some portion of the tournament, but you’ll have to keep reading to find out which ones have the most comprehensive coverage, as well as to discover how many games are available on Max and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
First, here’s a table of all the services and which games they will have on the respective channels for easy comparison, but there’s more to it than just the table here as we’ll walk you through below:
| DTV STREAM | Fubo | Hulu | Philo | Sling TV | YouTube | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Trial | Free Trial | Free 3-Day Trial | Free Trial | Get $10 Off | Sign Up | |||
| $79.99 | $91.99 | $76.99 | $25 | $40 | $40 | $72.99 | ||
| CBS | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | - | ✓ | |
| TBS | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| TNT | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| truTV | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | + $6 | ✓ | ✓ | |
Which Live TV Streamers Will Carry All NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Games in 2024?
Three live TV streaming services carry ALL of the March Madness games. There are two other broadcast TV streamers that carry at least some of the channels, but not all.
DIRECTV STREAM is our top choice for watching every single NCAA tournament game this year. This service offers new customers a five-day free trial, so you can enjoy a good selection of games completely free. Its plans start at $79.99 per month, and it offers all channels carrying tournament games this season. Additionally, DIRECTV STREAM carries a huge variety of top cable news, sports, and entertainment channels, making it very well-balanced from a content perspective for what you pay for. And on top of that, they will give you 3 free months of Max, Paramount+, Starz, and MGM+ which is over a $100 value if you pay for those separately.
Hulu + Live TV is second on our list of choices because not only does it carry all channels offering 2024 March Madness games, but it also includes the Disney Bundle at no extra cost for viewers who sign up at $76.99 per month or more. That allows viewers to watch any NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament games streaming on ESPN+ in addition to the men’s tournament, as well as Disney+ and Hulu for no extra charge. For $3 cheaper than DIRECTV STREAM per month, it’s a great value, but ultimately didn’t top our list because it doesn’t have a free trial and is missing some key regional sports channels.
YouTube TV also carries CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV, and will be bringing back its multiview feature to allow customers to watch up to four March Madness games simultaneously. It does not offer a standardized free trial for all new subscribers, however, nor does it include any free streaming services in its $72.99 monthly subscription price.
Which Live TV Streamers Carry a Selection of 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Games?
For these two streaming services, you can buy additional subscriptions to supplement what isn’t carried by them.
Sling TV is usually one of The Streamable’s top recommendations because it allows customers to watch high-demand cable channels on a budget. Sling’s prices start at $20 for your first month (then goes up to $40 per month for its base plans), but it does not offer CBS in any market. Sling can be used to watch the Women’s tournament on ESPN and ESPN2, however, so it’s still a good way to watch some of America’s best young basketball players. And if you combine it with a free 30-day trial of Paramount+ (info on that below), you can grab all the games for a combined total that is less than the comprehensive streaming services above. It’s a little bit more of a hassle to manage two subscriptions and doesn’t give you all the stuff you get with a service like DIRECTV, but is worth it if all you care about are the college basketball games.
Fubo offers new customers a free trial, though the length of that trial depends on what time of month you sign up for the service. The bigger sticking point with this service is that while it carries CBS in the vast majority of areas, it does not provide TBS, TNT, or truTV anywhere. Fubo is great for fans who want to stream the NBA, NHL, or MLB, however, as it carries regional sports networks (RSNs) for 98% of American viewers. Its plans start at $79.99 per month, but that doesn’t factor in the RSN fee that most viewers will have to pay. If you want to supplement with Fubo, you’ll have to grab Max (info on that below) to get their missing channels. However, you’ll end up paying a lot more with this combo than you would with DIRECTV or Hulu Live, so an option we would encourage you to avoid – unless you are just looking for a free trial of a specific game on CBS.
Do On-Demand Streaming Services Offer Any NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Games in 2024?
There are two on-demand streaming platforms that are offering live March Madness games this season. Max introduced its Bleacher Report sports add-on in October 2023, and though the original plan was to start charging $9.99 per month on top of a Max subscription for it at the end of February, Warner Bros. Discovery has kicked that can down the road. Max with the B/R Sports add-on can be had for as little as $9.99 per month, and the sports hub will offer all games airing on TBS, TNT, and truTV.
Paramount+ with SHOWTIME helps to fill the void left by Max, which does not carry any NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament games on CBS. This plan of Paramount+ costs $11.99 per month and includes a livestream of the local CBS station for customers in all markets. Paramount+ includes a standard free trial of seven days for all new customers, as well, but we’ve found a 30-day free trial code to use so it is essentially free.
ESPN+ isn’t carrying any Men’s games, but it is carrying some Women’s games. It also doesn’t include games that play in ESPN or ESPN2 for the Women’s tournament, so it won’t help you if you are just looking for watching Mens’ March Madness.
Our Suggestion
It comes down to what you value the most: Lots of comprehensive coverage with a lot of extras in one single interface, or something cheaper and more complicated to watch everything. If you are willing to shell out around $80, we suggest DIRECTV because of everything that comes with it. But if you are on a shoestring budget and only care about watching the games and nothing more, then going with a Max plus Paramount+ combo will give you the bare necessities.