How to watch 2019's March Madness on your Apple devices

For college basketball fans, the NCAA's March Madness tournament is nigh — 2019's games run March 19 through Apr. 8. Here's how to follow along on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV if you're not watching on cable or satellite.

The most direct option is to tune in using the NCAA's own March Madness Live app, which supports every Apple platform except macOS. All 67 games will be available to watch, spread across four different networks: CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. Live video will be available in the U.S., its territories, and — oddly enough — Bermuda.

There is a catch: after 3 hours, an authenticated TV subscription will be required for TBS, TNT and truTV. All CBS games will be free. The NCAA has yet to announce which networks will host which games, though the schedule will eventually appear here.

The next option is an internet TV service. Your best bet along those lines is probably YouTube TV, which carries all four channels in its base package. It also has an unlimited cloud DVR, and support for three simultaneous streams, which means no interruptions by family who'd rather not watch sports. The service is $40 per month, but you can sign up for a short trial if you're new — that may be handy if the only games you want to watch are the finals.

There are alternatives to YouTube TV such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and Hulu + Live TV, but they may either be missing one or more channels or simply cost more.

Most live TV services now support every Apple device, though in the case of Macs it's often a matter of watching via a Web browser.

1 Comment

bakerzdosen 16 Years · 185 comments

About 5 years ago

I haven't paid for a live TV subscription service for a while, but honestly, other than not having AMC (and *having* a bunch of channels I'll never watch), I've really liked YouTubeTV and don't have any complaints. (I also have no love for Google per se...)

It may seem odd as those two statements contradict, but one fantastic thing about YTTV is family sharing. They allow you to share your subscription with up to 5 others in your "family" group (it's REALLY helpful if you're in the same geographic area because it will require you to log in on a device with location services in that area every 3 months). So, as we rarely watch "live TV", my whole family is using one subscription (and unlike Netflix, they are separate accounts that each have their own DVR content rather than sharing a single username/pass combo.)

So if you know someone with a YTTV account and don't mind being "family..."