Streaming the 2010 NCAA Tournament

Its that time of the year again, March. The time when 64 teams have a shot at the national title for college basketball. Just a few years ago, CBS began streaming some of the tournament online if you signed up on their website. Fortunately, we’re now in 2010 and CBS no longer requires signup. CBS promises to stream ALL the games this year live from http://ncaa.com, so everyone can keep track of all the games even if they don’t have a wall of televisions and the super premium sports package.

If you’re like me and use Mozilla Firefox, you can install Prism and have a dedicated window for the games. CBS is streaming the video through Flash, which works perfectly with Prism. This means you can remove all the navigation bars, status bars, and other portions of Firefox that you won’t need while watching the game! Also, by watching the games in their own separate window, you’re less likely to accidently close the wrong window and kill the stream at a crucial moment.

If the words haven’t sold you, here’s a screenshot of what your portal to the tournament will look like after you’re done.

Here are the steps I followed.

1. The first step is of course to install Prism. The Prism homepage has instructions for installing Prism on your computer.
2. Once Prism is installed, go to the NCAA website and click “Watch March Madness.” If you don’t see it immediately, wait for a moment as it appears on a rotating graphic. If it doesn’t show up, you can visit the streaming site directly at http://mmod.ncaa.com.
3. Go into your Firefox Tools menu and select Convert Website to Application. This should bring you to a dialog box like the one below:

   

4. Configure the settings as you see fit. The only setting you should not change is URL. I left the first group of options unchecked to minimize the toolbars in my streaming window. Next, I checked the option for a shortcut in my Start Menu. Finally, I left the icon at the default shown above.
5. Click OK and the dialog box should close. Check to be sure the shortcut was created where you specified. If it was, you’re done!

Just like that you’re ready to watch the NCAA Tournament! If you’re a fan of social networking, you’ll be glad to know the site’s Facebook Connect feature works perfectly as well, so you can watch with your friends! Enjoy!