Talk about a productivity drain

If you noticed the corporate Internet connection slowing to a crawl late next week, you can thank the NCAA, CBS and March Maddness. No, it won’t be from people checking for the latest scores to see if their brackets are still intact. It will be from people watching the games live via the ‘Net.

For the first time, NCAASports will be offering live feeds of all 56 games from the first round for free. Fortunately, they realize opening this up to everyone will result in a poor quality for all, so they’re limiting the number of simulataneous users in the “virtual arena” and trying to get people to sign up early for VIP Passes that will provide quicker access to available streams (and probably a slew of great marketing offers.)