I've always wondered how they determine the game times within each session/regional. I've been following this closely for years, and I can't seem to find any logic or process as to determining what time a given team will play once the brackets are announced.
If anyone has any thoughts or information on this, I would certainly like to be enlightened.
It's mostly TV based, but the broadcasting changes they made several years ago changed the game.
In the old days, ALL the games were on CBS and the time slots more or less overlapped. Games were doled out based on logical regional designations. Now, all games are nationally broadcast on one network or anther and the start times are staggered-- this was a great idea IMO, and has worked quite well. In the past the second round was always over by about 5pm on Sunday with no games played durin the Sunday evening spot which is always and will always be THE prime spot for TV viewing--- this is why the NFL made the switch from MNF to SNF as their prime weekly spot many years ago. Now, most of the games on Sunday don't tip until late afternoon with a full slate throughout the evening.
In terms of slotting the regionals, TV rules. But it isn't as simple as putting all the blue bloods on primetime-- they want to spread it out some. I'm also quite sure that having OU play in OKC they will know the local preference from all parties would be to have them at night. No doubt that will be considered, but if they don't think it makes sense for TV they may very well play early. I definitely think it's a better bet they play at night, but it's not a lock.
They also have 8 broadcast crews set for the regionals and those are basically ranked 1-8 with the Jim Nantz crew being sent to whatever they consider the "primo" regional and then #2 from there.... Wherever Nantz goes, you can bet those games will be on primetime and be on CBS.
There is a great site
www.the506.com that is dedicated solely to sports TV discussion-- they hVe threads discussing this daily with people making predictions on which crews will go where and which time slots they will get, etc. If you are a geek like me I suggest checking it out.
