NCAA Tournament Games on the EPIC

[stevehank]

We are going to be on the EPIC during the 1st and 2nd Rounds of the NCAA Tournament and will be having an At Sea day. I am wondering if they will have the NCAA Games on the ship similar to how they have the NFL Playoffs. Has anyone ever cruised during the Tournament before and have they shown the games?

 

Thanks in advance

[WYTinman]

Don't count on it.

 

We sailed during the National Championship Football game and it wasn't shown.

 

We were told NCL didn't have broadcast rights to NCAA games.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Forums mobile app

[acpalmer]

We saw several of the NCAA basketball tournament games during our Spring Break cruise in March, 2016 on the Dawn. I know that isn't the Epic, but it seems that the tv channels that they can broadcast would be pretty similar across the fleet. They were shown pretty much any time they were on--there weren't any that we were looking for that we couldn't see.

 

Granted, this was a year ago, but that was our experience.

[csgsu]

so anyone that was on this part year during tournament did they show it? Im going next year and would love to know

[TeresaJ]

We were on the Epic this year during March Madness and YES they did show the games. Go to O'Sheehan's on deck six, they have big screen TVs in that whole restaurant and bar area. My hubby and teenage sons are big basketball fans so they were excited the games were on! They were contstantly checking scores all week long :)

[Stuart Suss]

I was on the Gem for the 2016 NCAA tournament. It was Sweet 16 weekend. On Thursday and Friday, in the USA, there are two games in the 7:30 pm slot and two games in the 10:00 pm slot. One game in each slot is televised by CBS and one game in each slot is televised by TBS.

 

For the Caribbean area, the NCAA tournament rights are owned by ESPN. They use the video and announcers provided by CBS/Turner, but, in 2016, they only showed only one game in each time slot. You could see the end of each game in a time slot, but you could not have any control over which portion of each game would be available. The CBS/TBS studio shows for pre-game, post-game and halftime were not available as part of the ESPN feed, so no Charles Barkley to hear.

 

I was not on board, so I do not know how the first two rounds were handled, when there can be as many as four games in each time slot.

 

Yes, O'Sheehan's is the best place to watch the game that is being offered. However, I first went to the main dining room, placed an order for an entree and vegetables with the head waiter, then carried that food to O'Sheehan's because, in 2016, O'Sheehan's had a limited selection of food and the quality was poor.

[Stuart Suss]

Having just returned from a voyage on the Jade, I need to revise my post dated October 5, 2017.

 

NCL carries the channel called Sport 24.

http://sport24-tv.com/about/

The channel shows NFL games on Thursday night, Sunday afternoon (1 game in each time slot), Sunday night and Monday night. Playoff games and the Super Bowl are available. Selected NBA and NHL games are shown along with games from the respective playoffs. NCAA college football regular season games are not available. No Major League baseball games are shown. My voyage was during the World Series and that was not available.

You can view the schedule for five weeks forward.

http://199.192.241.10/Schedule

 

On the other hand, NCL's internet provider, EMC, makes available a large selection of sporting events not shown on Sport 24 including the major league baseball playoffs, NCAA football bowl games and NCAA March Madness basketball.

http://emcconnected.com/digital-media/

From information I received from a senior staff member on the Jade, the NCL corporate office was not prepared to pay the fees for the World Series, and may not offer March Madness. The Super Bowl, the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup finals are supposedly to be shown.

 

We were docked in Aruba next to the Carnival Freedom which was on a 14 day cruise starting from and returning to Galveston/Houston. Passengers told me that the many Astros fans on board the Freedom were indignant about the failure to show the World Series and successfully demanded that Carnival show the games. I do not know if Carnival was required to pay a supplemental rights fee for each World Series game that was televised.

[lcpagejr]

I know my comment won't be directly relevant to NCL. But when I was on the Princess Royal 2 years ago....The NCAA semi-final games were shown on the Big screen over the pool on the Lido deck. Place was packed for both games and it was a great atmosphere!!

[dexddd]

We too can only comment about a different ship a couple years back. POA had it in the bar by buffet in 2016. They even had the brackets on a pedestal. We don't watch it so can't say how many shown.

[Jojo27]

We were on the Epic last spring break and they showed playoff games, had extra TVs set up in O'Sheehans. Not sure if they played all games but asked if they were going to show the Oregon/Kansas game and they did. Enjoy!

[fredflint]

One thing is that they have multiple tv's but only one channel.