Dick Vitale is a college basketball legend, but somehow the 86-year-old announcer has never called a March Madness game. That’s about to change: Vitale will be on the call for a First Four game in the 2026 men’s NCAA tournament next to Charles Barkley thanks to a partnership between ESPN and Turner Sports.
Turner has long owned the rights to March Madness, and that means Vitale, an ESPN employee, wouldn’t call games during college basketball’s spotlight event. An emerging partnership between ESPN and Turner formed when Turner lost the NBA rights in the latest TV deal, but ESPN swooped in to save the beloved ‘Inside the NBA’ featuring Barkley, Shaquille
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