News
NCAA basketball tournament coming to iTunes; Season Pass offered
Apple and CBS Sports have announced that the 2006 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship will be available from the iTunes Music Store. Condensed versions of the tournament games will be available for $1.99 per game or $19.99 for all 63 games using Apple’s new “Season Pass” feature on iTunes. Full-length versions of this year’s semifinals and championship game, as well as “compilations of buzzer beaters, upsets and memorable championship games from past NCAA Tournaments” will also be available on iTunes.
The new Season Pass option, which is very similar to the recently introduced Multi-Pass feature, allows iTunes customers to automatically receive the game videos as they become available for a much lower price than buying each game separately. “The new Season Pass feature on iTunes is the easiest way to purchase the entire 2006 NCAA Tournament,” says Apple. “Every game will automatically be placed in a customer’s download queue the day after it airs on CBS. Customers will be notified about new game highlights as they become available via email, and can be downloaded once they log into iTunes.”
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1
Holy smokes that’s a lot of basketball games
Posted by Dany on March 14, 2006 at 3:19 PM (PDT)
2
im not a basketball fan, but this is an awsome offer for 63 games. is this cheaper than the cable/sat. offers?
Posted by killa on March 14, 2006 at 3:39 PM (PDT)
3
I think something should also be said about Showtime adding the Lacy vs. Calzaghe fight too. You get the entire 1 and 1/2 hour video of the Super Middleweight Championship fight for only $1.99.
(If something has been said and I just missed it… sorry)
Posted by LilAlienD in Maryland on March 14, 2006 at 3:52 PM (PDT)
4
Wow. Are they actually calling it a Season Pass? That’s surprising? Didn’t TiVo TRADEMARK the term Season Pass in that context? Could get them into some trouble…
Posted by catboy17 on March 14, 2006 at 5:41 PM (PDT)
5
Didn’t TiVo TRADEMARK the term Season Pass…
Well, it’s not like Apple hasn’t “borrowed” like this in the past. ‘Ipod’ and ‘Nano’ (in their original form as used by earlier companies) are two such terms that come to mind. Maybe both Apple and CBS think that the erroneous use of the word ‘season’ in the context of only three long weekends of March Madness gets them off the hook? Just a thought…
Posted by flatline response on March 14, 2006 at 7:32 PM (PDT)
6
What is the difference between seasons pass and multi pass?
Posted by l on March 14, 2006 at 9:03 PM (PDT)
7
Hot crackers! I’m not into basketball, but this is a really cool setup for twenty bucks. It feels like iTunes is really hitting its stride as a pay media supplier. Have I mentioned how much I love these ‘Pass’ deals? In an earlier post I mentioned how this could be bad for things like DVD sales, but I kinda don’t care anymore. Apple, make Passes for everything! Make passes AT everything! You wanna get crazy?! Let’s get crazy!
Posted by Multimoog on March 14, 2006 at 9:47 PM (PDT)
8
Man, if iTunes does this with Major League Baseball I would be so all over it!
Posted by Tenchi211 in California on March 15, 2006 at 1:26 AM (PDT)
9
I know this is a bit of speculation, but maybe CBS is a bit disappointed with its deal with Google.
Posted by ooda on March 15, 2006 at 4:46 AM (PDT)
10
What is the difference between seasons pass and multi pass?
A multi pass lets you subscribe to shows, like the Daily Show, in which new episodes air almost every day of the week, for a monthly fee. This way, if you don’t want to watch it on TV, and just want to download every episode, you don’t have to pay for every day’s episode. Maybe we’ll see this feature come to late night TV on iTunes, like Conan.
On the other hand, a season pass seems to be for sports-related videos, in which you can purchase a team/sport’s entire season of games for one price, instead of paying for each game individually. This price will probably be different for each sport, depending on how many games that sport has a season.
Posted by Homestar14 on March 15, 2006 at 5:40 AM (PDT)
11
Also, with a season pass it looks like the previous games are downloaded as part of the package, whereas with a multi-pass you’d have to buy previous shows for the normal price.
Posted by ooda on March 15, 2006 at 6:32 AM (PDT)
12
Looks like a multi-pass only gets you a certain number of episodes (16, for example, with the Comedy Central shows), while a season pass will encompass the entire season (in the basketball case, every game offered during the tournament).
Posted by crunkmaster on March 15, 2006 at 8:49 AM (PDT)
13
It should be noted that these are “compressed” games - it will be interesting to see how much of the game you get.
Posted by Kevin on March 15, 2006 at 8:56 AM (PDT)