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March Madness live stream 2024: Watch the Championship Game

UConn and Purdue will face off in the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship. While this year’s March Madness bracket had some drama, including exciting upsets and low-ranked teams like NC State getting close to the finish line, ultimately this year will see two No. 1 ranked teams face off. Can UConn pull off back-to-back championships, or will Purdue get the win?

The game is tonight at 9:20 p.m. and will be aired on TNT, TruTV, TBS and Max. It will also live stream on cable-cutting services like Sling TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream and more. Keep reading for everything you need to know.

Is There a Free March Madness Live Stream?

YouTube TV on Roku.
Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

Both YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” package or above) include all of the channels you need to watch every tournament game–CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV. They also both come with a free five-day trial. If you haven’t already used either of those free trials, that’s every remaining game of the tournament at no cost.

The March Madness Live app/website also gets you one free game of March Madness. If you haven’t used that yet, you might as well cash it in for the championship. While this option actually has every game, you need to sign in to a cable provider to watch them all. If you don’t have that, though, you get three unrestricted hours before needing to sign in, giving you enough time to watch a single game at no cost.

Other Ways to Watch March Madness Live Stream for Cheap

Max logo
Max / Max

If you don’t want to worry about the stress of free trials and timing when to sign up and cancel, the combination of Max (formerly HBO Max) and Paramount+ is the cheapest way to watch every game. Max is just $10 per month and will have a live stream of every truTV, TBS and TNT game.

For another relatively inexpensive option, you can go with Sling TV‘s “Sling Orange” plus “Entertainment Extra” bundle, which is on sale for just $41 for your first month. This includes truTV, TBS and TNT and 35 other channels.

How to Watch March Madness Live Stream from Abroad

NordVPN for Apple TV.
Derek Malcolm / Digital Trends

If you want to access one of those streaming services from outside of the United States, a virtual private network (VPN) can hide your IP address and get you around any location-restrictions that stand in your way.

NordVPN is our recommendation. It doesn’t limit bandwidth speeds, it has over 2,000 servers in the United States and it has a dedicated Chrome extension, all things that make it one of the most reliable VPN’s for streaming sports on any service.

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Tim Keeney
Tim is a long-time sports journalist who has written about everything from the NFL to more popular sports such as chess…
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