Last year was the first year fans of NCAA March Madness could watch the early round games on their computer....for FREE. It was wildly successful and its available again this year. Over 19 million people watched NCAA March Madness online last year.

There were some sponsors of the NCAA Tournament who after seeing the success of the online audience last year, specifically shifted their ad dollars online this year. 

CBS SportsLine in partnership with CBS Sports, CSTV and the NCAA® announced that they have begun taking sign-ups for VIP access to their record setting NCAA® March Madness® on Demand (MMOD) service. MMOD is the online player that provides live streaming video from the first 56 games* of the NCAA® Division I Men's Basketball Championship as they are broadcast by CBS Sports (game action only) and is offered completely free of charge.
 
As a VIP member, users will have much faster access to live video from the 2007 NCAA® Division I Men's Basketball Championship on game days. Without VIP access, fans will have to wait in a virtual line behind all VIP members. As an example of how long this virtual line can be, in 2006, MMOD had 150,000 people in the waiting room on Thursday March 16 just after the first games started. If that line was single-file and visible (assuming each person takes up two feet of space), it would have been over 50 miles long.

To sign up and register to be a VIP, click here. I'm already signed up! 

Live streaming video is hopefully the trend for the future. With most of us spending the majority of time in front of our computers, its much more convenient to tune in online than via our TV sets. NBC is already promising that we'll be able to watch the 2008 Bejing Games online. Others are sure to follow suit.