NCAA March Madness Live Reviews

by DaveTomyn

*Zero stars if I could*

Guys, you really need to fix your app. Your daily updates don’t always work, and in this case froze NCAAMarchMadnessLive . Once I got it working again by deleting and reinstalling, NCAAMarchMadnessLive says “there’s a connection problem” (there isn’t) or “there’s a problem with your pass (there isn’t..it even let me sign in and said I had done so successfully.) The games are down on the web too, so at least you’re consistent. When you’re consistently terrible though, maybe you shouldn’t be broadcasting a tournament that is beyond the scope of you can pull off. Or at least hire a good tech and software firm to put together your app-you can afford it.

Since we’re stuck with you for now, could you PLEASE FIX NCAAMarchMadnessLive so we can watch the madness instead of dealing with yours?

by Pismokitty

The NCAA app has been completely worthless for me this year after using it previously for several years with no real issues. It's equally bad on my iPad Pro and iPhone 6S.

NCAAMarchMadnessLive constantly crashes, constantly asks me to log in with to cable provider, even after I just did and got a success message, constantly freezes and constantly gives me loading issues which only seem to be resolved by uninstalling NCAAMarchMadnessLive and re-downloading it from NCAAMarchMadnessLive Store. Even then, that only resolves it maybe half the time. I’ve even it had it freeze up on the AppleTV and require a reinstall.

I’m done with it at this point. I really hope the dev team gets their act together for next year. Maybe they can take some notes in the off season from the team that works on the NBC Sports app. Their app worked flawlessly on all my devices during the Winter Olympics coverage last month. Kudos to them.

by Michigan84

Decent streaming app, had sone minor buffering issues but overall works fine.

However, I’m giving it 2 stars because it makes you watch an ad every time you switch “channels”. So if there are multiple close games going on, it’s virtually impossible to quickly flip between them because you get the dumb ad every time. I saw NMSU and Auburn were within 1 point with 1 second left so I tried to switch to watch the ending. I missed it because I had to sit through a 30 second ad before it would show the live action. It plays all the ads during the normal commercial breaks, so I think it’s completely unacceptable to also throw in these extra ones, especially when they interfere with actually watching the games.

by Some Other Product Owner

As a product manager, the best thing about NCAAMarchMadnessLive is how it makes me feel about myself and my prior work as a point of comparison.

Both the decisions and execution driving the user experience this year scream mismanagement and a fundamental misunderstanding of industry standards and best practices.

There is no PIP functionality, despite it essentially being a freebie via the operating system. Users are also unable to pause game video. I can only assume both of these decisions were made to force users to watch more preroll, which is required every time the feed is stopped as a result of NCAAMarchMadnessLive being put in the background.

The feed is in chronological order, so the oldest post is at the top. Users are never brought to the bottom of the feed, where they would find the most recent and more relevant content. The top and bottom posts in the feed are semi-obscured by some sort of vignette for... reasons?

There is no multi view option, despite this being arguably the most relevant event in the world for such a feature to exist.

Even the player control UI - something as simple as the design for active and inactive states on closed captions - is horribly implemented.

I feel bad for the teams who worked on this and were either clearly not given the time and tools to succeed, or were in way over their heads.

It’s a serviceable app, but in no way is this a product that values the user’s experience.

by Hhggyyu

The application seems to work fine, but you can only use it for a short period of time. After that, you need to sign in with your television provider.

I don’t have an issues with that. Still, as someone that has stopped paying for overpriced cable or satellite, this is a real roadblock.

I would have been willing to pay a certain amount of money for access to March Madness through this application. With as many people that have left behind the old services, I feel like this was a missed opportunity. I am sure there were others willing to pay to be able to stream for this tournament as well.

by Wsgirard

I’d like to start this by saying NCAAMarchMadnessLive is super convenient and useful during the ncaa basketball tournament. I would rate it 5 stars expect for one huge flaw. When a game finishes, NCAAMarchMadnessLive is designed so that it gives you menu of other games to chose from to watch next. This seems convenient except it does this WHILE THE GAME YOU ARE WATCHING IS NOT FINISHED. So let’s say you’re watching the end of a very close game, there’s 20 seconds on the game clock, and the ball was just passed in. The clock starts ticking and … opp, NCAAMarchMadnessLive kicks you out of the game and here are some other games you can watch. This is super annoying and takes away from all of the good things NCAAMarchMadnessLive has to offer because this “feature” happens at the most important point of a game ,and you can’t turn it off or do anytime about it other than try to get back to the game you were watching as quickly as possible. Hopefully this can be changed, but until that happens, 2 star rating from me.

by Schemmdogg

Let me preface this complaint with the fact that I have young kids and can’t listen to them complain while I watch games all day and have to let them watch some of their shows to give them a break. Why am I going to use an app to watch a game that I can watch on my tv when I have to watch the same 15 second ad over and over again before actually getting the game on. This is extremely annoying as I’m already watching the ads on the commercial breaks. But I continue to lose the feed due to some error and have to reopen the feed and watch the same 15 second ad again. STOP THE 15 SECOND AD! If that were gone, this would easily be a 5 star app.

by _Jonesy_

NCAAMarchMadnessLive was amazing two years ago, then you got rid of replays, and they’re still missing. You can’t watch every single game live, there’s 16 on in each of the first two days! Don’t you think people would want to go back and watch the other games? Especially if they work since it starts on two work days? It was the best feature and you removed it, boggles the mind. You should have added a score hiding toggle, not removed replays argh. Also having to watch a 15s ad every time you turn it on or change the game is annoying, especially when it crashes a lot when casting it to your appletv. Speaking of which it crashes 5 times every time I try to restart it while casting to the appletv. Very frustrating and gotten worse over the years.

by Ck_1967

App gets you what you need but mostly the same app they have had for years. No support for multitasking on on the iPad. No minimizing the video and if you go to another app, it takes you back to the home screen not the game you were watching - which is made worse by having to watch multiple ads Every. Single. Time. before the game will stream. You miss at least 5 minutes of video every time you check your email. This is the same on my phone.

Ultimately if you must watch on mobile, it does the job which is the important thing, but NCAA could take some of the millions they get paid for the tournament and make a new app.

by Jeep Trackhawk

There are a few minor nuances; however the two most annoying ones:

1) when your watching a game and it’s at the end of the game, game is close with a few critical seconds left, for some reason NCAAMarchMadnessLive kicks you out and shows a list of other games playing, even though the game was not over that you were watching and you can click on it to get back in, hoping you didn’t miss that final last second shot for a win…why would it kick you out before the game is over at the most exciting critical point in the entire game?

2) OK OK OK, I pick UK to go to the final four…but NCAAMarchMadnessLive only crosses out the immediate game. Why does it not cross out all future games on the bracket as well? At a glance it looks like all my final four are still in the running…makes it difficult to look ahead at a glance when NCAAMarchMadnessLive does cross out all future games you got wrong too for an early loss of a Team you picked to go deep…

by Mojomazu

I have used NCAAMarchMadnessLive for three years and have found it invaluable. Stuck waiting for a train home, I had the game.
Connectivity to tv thru AirPlay or adapter was never faulty and if I had to take a call and leave NCAAMarchMadnessLive , I came right back to the game in real time. Having game highlights that stay up several days for missed games is great too! If NCAAMarchMadnessLive is not working, you prolly have an old phone or live in a poor signal area. The update for NCAAMarchMadnessLive loads fast and picks up in real time if a game is on. I hope the good work on NCAAMarchMadnessLive continues every year. I never fear the Ides of March when my NCAA app is near!

by Drewsky5

This would easily be a five star app if they had proper AirPlay support. Boo. Hiss.

2014 update:

Not only did they not add AirPlay support, but they went out of their way to eliminate any AirPlay functionality even with mirroring. That is absolute garbage.

2015 update:

No change from last year. What a terrible user experience.

2016 update:

AirPlay and an Apple TV app! That's great news. Unfortunately, NCAAMarchMadnessLive has taken some serious steps backwards.

It's no longer possible to see other score while a game is playing. You also were previously able to hop to another game with one tap. That feature is gone, which is a serious usability flaw.

Also, the scores and time left on the clock are frequently wrong on the main dashboard.

2019 update:

Pretty solid overall. The ability to watch multiple games is slick, although it’s difficult to see which game you are switching to because the UI is a bit ambiguous. The biggest issue is that every day it requires me to authenticate again, which is incredibly frustrating.

by Hgfsdhjkjc

Great great app. Like that I can watch on my phone BUT as someone who doesn’t have cable (and won’t get it just for the tourney) it’d be nice if I could just pay a flat $20 or something to be able to CAST the games onto my chromecast. You have to sign into a tv provider to cast, but if I had cable why would I be casting?? people will always find a way to stream it illegally so just give them a legit way to pay a fair flat rate for tourney access to all games.

Other than that great app. Great articles and the UX design is really well thought out. Love being able to customize my own stats and see how the teams stack up under MY insights to what’s important. V cool.

by Ryan2418

I could say so much about NCAAMarchMadnessLive. But I’ll start with this: it’s so easy to watch games live on NCAAMarchMadnessLive, and If you miss the game, or just wanna watch highlights they have a short version of the game. NCAAMarchMadnessLive also has a video section where you could watch videos about March Madness and the individual teams. They also give you bracket advice. Out of all the NCAA Tourney apps this is the best. The only thing I think NCAAMarchMadnessLive needs is an archive section where you could view previous tournaments, and watch those games highlights.

by Sharfenda

It’s that time of year when everything comes to a standstill for weeks thanks to the NCAA’s annual celebration of sweat, teamwork, competition and excitement. The brackets have been set and teams are en route to play the 67 basketball games that will take place over the next few weeks, with fans cheering for their favorite team.
Thanks to the glories of NCAAMarchMadnessLive, you can follow all the action this year, you can get expert insight into your favorite Cinderella team, watch every game — and maybe even pick the perfect bracket. Did I mention you can follow your own bracket in real time!

by Womens Justice

I love NCAAMarchMadnessLive, and I have used it every day since I got it! It’s great if you want to stream a game on the TV and another game, and it’s even better when you’re in the car, because you can watch a game instead of just being bored. My only complaint is that there is no place on here to stream the woman’s games. If only we could, because if so, this would be the best app in the world. Please do this soon because there’s no purpose to call it NCAA March Madness if it’s only the men’s games.

by Darius626

I download NCAAMarchMadnessLive every year around March from completing however many brackets you want to watching the games live NCAAMarchMadnessLive lets you do it all and if there’s games you miss you can go back and watch the highlights and excitement surrounding March madness you can follow your favorite team or teams as they progress through the bracket there’s even a point system with how many picks you got right and you can rank yourself among the groups your bracket is in your bracket will always be a bust after the first round but overall NCAAMarchMadnessLive is amazing

by Moo$e993

In years past I swore I would never use NCAAMarchMadnessLive again. I used it again this year because it came down to my last and only option for viewing the March madness. I still don’t understand the “your time has expired”. It seemed each device had its own time limit. After exhausting the living room tv and the bedroom tv I was left with my phone. I started watching the Baylor game early. It was before your app emblem appeared over my cbs icon. I turned off at half time. When I tried to get back on, not allowed. I was livid. One last option was to try your MM app again. I did and it worked. Yes, NCAAMarchMadnessLive that said I timed out last time is now working again.

by Wisconsin_fan#1

A very good app allowing you to do many things like make multiple brackets, join leagues, check scores, and ultimately watch games for free. Although one thing I would change is to allow people to watch games without only being able to watch a total of 3 hours throughout March Madness unless you log into your TV provider which can be unfair to kids because they might not know what it is. But otherwise it is a nice family friendly app allowing people to enjoy college basketball.

by I <3 March Madness

Where do I start? NCAAMarchMadnessLive will fill you with joy as you scroll the bracket and it will make you smash your phone when you realize that you will never get a perfect bracket. It is like watching a sad movie. It starts and everybody is happy until something bad happens. In this case it would be your team losing to an underdog. It’s a roller coaster of emotions. I use NCAAMarchMadnessLive everyday, even when there is no college basketball on. NCAAMarchMadnessLive is perfect for you and your family. You will have memories for the rest of your life’s from NCAAMarchMadnessLive. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. NCAAMarchMadnessLive is amazing!!!!

by Steelerhater37

Every time I go to read a text and come back to the game it shows me a commercial. 2.5 seconds left in Maryland Belmont game with Terps leading by 2 I send my dad a quick txt re the game & come back to app to see a commercial & not the last exciting seconds of the game.
Booooooooo! All day long this happened
3rd day of tourney and same %#€*. Commercial every time I have to answer a text when I come back to junk app. Nothing but commercials.
Today 20 second left in a game but you feel the need to show me a 15 second commercial that when it ends SO DID THE GAME!!! Just horrible even with the constant updates u never fix the commercials. Also just so you know this is the first review I have ever written in my life. So that should tell you how bad NCAAMarchMadnessLive is
And then to top things off you don’t even show my review

by Nittany4

Being able to quickly toggle and split screen 3 of the 4 games is fantastic. Easily 5 star material. Leaving the CBS game off NCAAMarchMadnessLive is as short sided as you can be. I am able to stream EVERY other sporting event (st least the one’s O want to watch) unless they happen to be on CBS or CBS Sports. If that’s the car it means changing the input and firing up the cable box. No big deal right? Well the other TVs in the house that don’t have cable boxes are Out if luck. CBS needs to join this century as stream their programming. I am already paying my cable service for it. The fCt that everyone else offers streaming and you don’t clearly shows who is out to lunch.

by Ralphie Malf

I’ve used NCAAMarchMadnessLive for several years and I appreciate the efforts to improve it over time.
Some things are worse this year:
First, percentiles are gone from the leaderboard. The rank means little to me as I don’t know how many are entered and I have no realistic chance of winning. I was happy before to shoot for a high percentile score. Now I don’t have that information.
Secondly, on the leaderboard the rank numbers are not readable because they are cut off on both sides, on my iPhone SE display.
Third, scrolling around in my brackets is jerky and awkward.

by Cuse Ball

Can’t stand that they take you to there 15 second commercials even when there is less than a minute left in the game. Also you could have just watched an ad and want to watch the last thirty seconds of a diff game and you MUST watch another and you miss 15 of the last thirty. Just make me watch two commercials at the start of the next one. Whomever came up with that idea is clearly on the financial side and has never watched the last thirty seconds of a b-ball game. Other than that little hiccup the rest of NCAAMarchMadnessLive is great and easy to use.

by Nashvilleattyjenniferhall

Easy to use. Great highlights and other videos. Nice touch w option of seeing the stats while watching the game. I live in Nashville now and use an antenna. So far, so good on Kentucky games. (Watched on phone while running errands and from my bed). I just saw where it says I have “2 hours 16 minutes etc” left for viewing. Is this true? Bc I’m going to need that Sweet 16 game and hopefully more. Is there a way to pay per view or subscription for the games? Please tell me I’m mistaken!

by UnspeakableReal

You mainly can’t do anything except for make and join groups (I joined the Mississippi State official group, of course). From what I can tell, it’s a well developed app. In the groups, I think you’ll be able to make bracket projections and get points for each game you get right (points increase each round) which seems extremely cool to me. You can also make your group private and only share your password with friends. Pretty interesting concept.