ESPN was the first broadcaster to provide extensive early-round coverage of NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, prior to CBS, later in partnership with Turner Sports, holding sole rights to "March Madness".
ESPN has aired college basketball games from its inception, starting in 1979 with DePaul's victory over Wisconsin with a then-novice color commentator Dick Vitale and Joe Boyle doing the play-by-play.
That year, ESPN aired the BYU-Notre Dame (at Atlanta) with Bill O'Donnell and Jeff Mullins on the call.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s with only a single network; no regional or internet coverage, ESPN televised around 200 games a year.
[5] ESPN has rapidly increased its coverage throughout the years as the network as expanded from a single cable channel to a multiple outlets including the internet.
In 2003, ESPN and its sister networks aired all the games of the Women's NCAA Tournament for the first time ever, a practice that still exists today.
[6] On March 4, 2005, ESPNU premiered on the outset of a Texas–Oklahoma State game from Stillwater, Oklahoma with a special two-hour edition of College GameDay.
[11][12][13][14] In 2010, ESPN reached a deal for rights to Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball and football, while still maintaining Raycom's long-standing syndicated package.
[15] In July 2016, ESPN announced an extension of the agreement, which would include the formation of the ACC Network cable channel, and the end of Raycom's broadcast television package after the 2018–19 season.
The event traditionally includes an airing of Jim Valvano's speech at the 1993 ESPY Awards, where he addressed his condition and announced the formation of the charity.
While domestic rights to the NCAA men's tournament are held by CBS and Turner Sports, ESPN International distributes coverage of the tournament internationally, and produces its own feed of the Final Four and championship game using the ESPN College Basketball staff.
In 2013, ESPN International's Final Four coverage was called by Dan Shulman and Dick Vitale (alternatively joined by Brad Nessler for one of the semi-final games).
The event was co-promoted with ESPN.com's ESPN Tournament Challenge bracket game, and contained charitable appeals for the Jimmy V Foundation.
[53] ESPN is often accused of having a bias towards certain teams, including the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), particularly the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels.
[54] ESPN and the ACC have a rights deal that extends through the 2026–27 season which provides additional football, men's and women's basketball and Olympic sports coverage on a variety of platforms, suggesting the bias may have a financial motivation.
Temple head coach John Chaney once said "You can't get Dick Vitale to say 15 words without Duke coming out of his mouth".
[58] During the regular season, typical games that are shown almost every year on the ESPN family of networks include Duke-North Carolina, Florida-Kentucky, Texas Tech-Baylor, Gonzaga-Saint Mary's, and Kansas-Kansas State.