Jennifer Bayoneta

'Madness' Fans Overload Site

It looks like thousands of March Madness basketball fans hoping to watch the games on the Web today will be left out in the cold. We’re test-driving NCAA’s March Madness On Demand Web site, and NCAA and CBS SportsLine are having trouble accommodating all of the Web traffic.

5:45 p.m. – CBS SportsLine released the first traffic numbers from today’s Web coverage of the tournament. More than 800,000 people have registered for the March Madness on Demand Internet coverage, the company said, with users visiting the video player wmore than 1.5 million times Thursday.

There were more than 189,000 users waiting in line to get into the video player before the tip-off of the first game (Maryland vs. Davidson), CBS SportsLine added.

2:36 p.m. – I’m in! The count-down clock showing the wait to access the games had reached 128 minutes, and then Alex Riethmiller from CBS SportsLine returned my call. After I explained the problem to him, he suggested I refresh the Web page by using the right-click button on my mouse. The count-down clock then jumped to 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, the good opening games are over. I could watch the “epic clash,” as Cohen calls it, between Oral Roberts and Washington State. But the Georgetown-Belmont game is scheduled to begin at 2:48 p.m.

2:20 p.m. – Apparently, there’s a 20-second delay between the live broadcasts on CBS and the online coverage. I was able to confirm this after WCBS-TV switched over to the Maryland-Davidson game after the Boston College-Texas Tech game ended, and noticed that the feed running on Dave Cohen’s computer here at Multichannel’s New York office is 20 seconds behind the WCBS-TV feed, running through a Time Warner Cable connection.

2 p.m. – There’s now a 93-minute wait on the “general admission” line on ncaasports.com to access its live, free March Madness coverage. I’m still at place 33,031 in line. I’d like to watch the Maryland-Davidson game online, which looks like it will come down to the wire, with Davidson, seeded 14^th in the Midwest bracket, possibly pulling off an upset over Maryland, seeded fourth. But I’m forced to watch the games on TV, and WCBS-TV in New York is sticking with the Boston College-Texas Tech game.

1:25 p.m. – How many people are watching the games on the Web right now? I’m not sure – haven’t heard back from CBS SportsLine reps, who are apparently swamped today. But SportsLine said earlier this week that it had accepted more than 400,000 registrations for March Madness On Demand.

There’s now a 60-minute wait to access the live games, with more than 118,000 Web surfers on line.

1:20 p.m. – It’s looking doubtful that I’ll be checking out NCAA games from around the nation any time soon. The “next admission” clock now reads 52 minutes. There are no hoops to watch on TV either. It’s half-time for the first games – WCBS-TV is running no live basketball at the moment.

12:50 p.m.  – The clock in the “general admission waiting room” for the March Madness Web site is up to more than 24 minutes now. I was thinking of calling CBS to ask for a press pass to access the site, but that would kill the fun of detailing how thousands of other people still can’t access the games. CBS and the NCAA deserve credit for detailing how many people are locked out of the free March Madness coverage. There are 118,586 people waiting in line, according to the Web site.

12:40 p.m. – The audio for the commercials on the Web site are louder than sound from the actual games, my colleague Dave Cohen, who was able to gain access to free Mega March Madness games, reports. I’m down to place 33,013 in line.

12:30 p.m. – NCAA.com has been running a count-down clock on its Web site listing the “next admission” time for the March Madness online games. All morning, the clock had been counting down, letting in blocks of thousands of Web surfers in at a time. Now, the clock is counting up – says it’ll be more than five minutes until the next group of fans are allowed into the site.

There are 118,586 people in the general admission line, according to the Web site.

12:15 p.m – Game time, and I’m not able to watch the games online, along with more than 115,000 other Web surfers, according to the waiting line stats on NCAA.com. At least there’s one game I can watch – Boston College-Texas Tech. It’s running on the TV on my desk, through WCBS-TV here in New York. My colleagues in the office that have been able to access the online NCAA games can’t watch this game, since NCAA and CBS are blacking out access to games that are carried live on local stations.

12 p.m. – with a half-hour to go before game time, I’m down to 41,839 in the general admission line. The site shows that there are 64,000 people total in the general admission line.

11:55 a.m. – I’m still 43,245 in line – doubt I’ll be able to watch the first games online.

11:35 a.m.  – Waited until opening day of the NCAA tournament to register for the Mega March Madness On Demand games. Apparently if I had registered for a free “V.I.P. pass” a few days earlier, there wouldn’t be any trouble accessing the games.