It seems that March Madness has passed CBS by. Its contract runs out in 2013, and it’s time for another network to get a crack at the event.

While the coverage of the actual games has been up to par, the network’s indecision and lethargy in terms of switching from game to game has been very prominent this year. It has happened throughout the tournament, but the most recent dereliction in duty centered around the Duke/Cal game. Living in Southern California, I knew we were going to get most of the Cal game — and as a Duke fan, I had no problem with it — but the Blue Devils were up double digits for most of the second half and CBS stuck with the game for far too long.

Pitt/Xavier and Purdue/A&M were both tighter contests and were coming down to the wire. Finally, with under a minute to play, the network switched to the Pitt/Xavier game, but then inexplicably switched back once Xavier went up by six — with 0:25 on the clock — so we missed Gilbert Brown’s three that cut the lead in half. Duke was up 17 points at the time, and I’d wager that even the most die-hard Cal fan had already seen enough. We would have missed most of the Purdue/A&M finish as well, but luckily that game went into overtime so we were able to see an extra five minutes of the great knock-down, drag-out brawl that it was.

This wouldn’t matter as much if CBS’ online programming — March Madness On Demand — worked as advertised. I have a pretty up to date computer, and the MMOD feeds hang with regularity. When I restart the window, I end up getting video that’s 15 or 20 minutes old. At one point, I just gave up and watched whatever the network decided to broadcast — which is how I ended up in the middle of that Duke/Cal debacle. And it’s not like the technology doesn’t exist. NBA League Pass Broadband isn’t perfect, but I can watch three games at once without anything hanging, plus the picture is better, so its engine would be a vast improvement over whatever system CBS is using.

Then there’s CBS’ sister network, CBS-College Sports, which was inexplicably covering women’s college bowling at one point when there were other March Madness games to broadcast. Instead, CBS-CS should be used to show four games at once (via split-screen, like DirecTV’s NFL Game Mix Channel), so that those of us with bigger televisions could enjoy all the tournament action at once. Instead, we have three or four guys whom I’ve never seen before, sitting around what looks like sports desk at a small college A/V department previewing upcoming games, or worse, discussing ongoing games that can’t be watched, or even worse, women’s college bowling.

Wouldn’t March Madness be a perfect fit for ABC/ESPN? The Worldwide Leader already has an established foothold in college basketball, and they do far more to cover the sport throughout the week than CBS can do on the weekends (once football season is over, of course). The marquee game (i.e. national feed) could be broadcast on ABC, with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU (which are all available in my market in HD) could broadcast the other 2-3 games that are being played at the same time. Local markets could still get their local game, though it may mean that one of the other games would be unavailable on the ESPN channels. (I don’t think ESPN has the ability to broadcast different games in different parts of the country.) Anyway, who cares? Viewers would have their choice of watching 3-4 games, presumably in HD. ESPN could even use ESPNews to broadcast the aforementioned Game Mix Channel. Everyone wins.

Like most of the programming on CBS, the network is simply skewing older. The days when viewers would quietly swallow whatever the networks decided to broadcast are long gone. Younger audiences want it all — better quality picture and more choice — and CBS isn’t keeping up with the times.

It’s time to pass the ball.

Photo from fOTOGLIF