This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The deal that CBS and Turner made with the NCAA men's basketball tournament in 2010 reaches a turning point on Monday. For the first time in the 78-year history of the event, the championship game will air on a cable channel.

If you don't have cable or satellite TV, you'll need to find someone who has TBS — and Turner and CBS are pretty confident you can do that. They're not expecting to take much of a ratings hit.

"Whenever anything moves for the first time, there's always a challenge. I think it's inevitable," said Craig Barry, Turner Sports executive vice president. "Hopefully, it won't have any kind of a massive impact."

This really is not that big a change. TBS aired the semifinals in 2014 and 2015.

And you can watch games online at ncaa.com/march-madness-live.

Nonetheless, there's grumbling. Check social media and you'll find pockets of outrage and vows to boycott. Which, quite frankly, are ridiculous. For a couple of reasons:

• First, TV coverage of the NCAA tournament is inarguably better since CBS and Turner teamed up in 2011.

• And, second, if CBS and Turner hadn't pulled off this 14-year, $11 billion, deal, ALL the games would be on cable.

As recently as 2010, before the CBS-Turner partnership, viewers had choices made for them by TV programmers.

Here in Utah, we knew that if Utah, BYU, Utah State or Weber State was in the tournament, we would see those games on the local CBS station, KUTV-Ch. 2. We weren't assured that we would see those games in their entirety, because there were times when we were switched to more competitive games.

And if you were a fan of any other team in the country, it was hit-and-miss — more miss than hit — as to whether you'd see your team.

Since 2011, every game in every round of the tournament has aired in its entirety on CBS, TBS, TNT or TruTV. Yes, you have to have cable or satellite TV. And, yes, viewers have to be reminded where to find TruTV every year .

But the thought of somebody at CBS deciding which games we'd get to see seems incredibly archaic now.

To the second point, CBS teamed up with Turner out of necessity. In 2010, the NCAA opted out of the final three years of an 11-year, $6 billion contract with CBS in search of an even bigger payday.

ESPN went hard after the rights, and it could have aired every game on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNews.

Had that happened, there would have been no broadcast TV games at all. (There was no talk of putting games on ESPN's sister broadcast network, ABC. And ESPN, not ABC, airs the college football title game.)

As for the difference between CBS and TBS — if you don't look at the channel number, you won't be able to tell this year's Final Four is on cable.

"Other than a logo — no," said Harold Bryant, CBS Sports' senior vice president of production. "The viewer will see the same game. The same production. We've looked to add a few cameras here and there, but there's nothing different because it's on cable."

And, yes, the "One Shining Moment" montage will be featured after the end of the title game — for the 30th year in a row. Albeit with a newly recorded version of the song.

By the way, the Final Four returns to CBS in 2017. And then it's back on TBS in 2018, as the two outlets trade back-and-forth for the remainder of the contract, which runs through 2024.

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.