CHARLOTTE, NC — CBS Sports Network and the NJCAA have announced a yearlong agreement that will feature the NJCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball National Championship games and the NJCAA Football National Championship game in 2019. The agreement makes CBS Sports Network the national television partner of the association.
CBS Sports Network will air the basketball national championship games on March 23 with the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship game at 12:00 p.m. ET and the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship game at 2:00 p.m. ET. The Football National Championship is slated for Dec. 5, 2019, on CBS Sports Network with a 6:00 p.m. ET kickoff.
Since 1949, the NJCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament has been held at the Hutchinson Sports Arena. The 24-team single elimination tournament is also scheduled to begin on March 18, and is hosted by the American Legion Lysle Rishel Post #68 and Visit Hutch. The men’s basketball tournament was awarded the 2018 SportsTravel Award for the Best Single-Sport Event in the Collegiate division at the annual national TEAMS Conference. They ended up winning over other nominated events such as the Big Ten Football Championship in Indianapolis and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.
After becoming the first nationally televised NJCAA championship game on CBS Sports Network in 2018, the NJCAA Football National Championship game will return to the channel in 2019. The 2018 game featured #1 East Mississippi and #2 Garden City (KS) in a defensive slugfest, with the Lions defeating Garden City 10-9. The 2019 championship game will be the second of a three-year agreement with the Crawford County Convention & Visitors Bureau, and will be played at Carnie Smith Stadium on the campus of Pittsburg State in Pittsburg, KS.
CBS Sports Network, the 24-hour home of CBS Sports, is widely available through all major cable, satellite and telco distributors as well as via OTT streaming service providers YouTube TV, fuboTV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV and Hulu. For more information, including a full programming schedule and how to get CBS Sports Network, go to www.cbssportsnetwork.com.