Despite being lambasted by an overwhelming majority of American sports fans and decried as a terrible idea that only collegiate athletics executives want, the NCAA is on the verge of to expanding March Madness.
As first reported by ESPN, the NCAA is set to grow the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams beginning next year.
While no decisions have been formally made yet, a source told CBS Sports that there is a ‘very, very small chance’ that expansion will not happen.
Multiple groups involved in the NCAA basketball tournaments – including the men’s and women’s basketball selection committees, the Division I cabinet and the Board of Governors – are expected to approve the expansion.
The NCAA Tournament last expanded in 2011 to accommodate 68 teams. The last major expansion came in 1985 when the tournament moved to 64 teams from 32. Now, the most popular amateur athletics competition in the nation will grow once again.
In a statement to ESPN, the NCAA said, ‘Expanding the basketball tournaments would require approval from multiple NCAA committees, including the men’s and women’s basketball committees, and no final recommendations or decisions have been made at this time.’
The NCAA is on the verge of expanding March Madness to an unpopular 76 teams
This change will affect both the men’s and the women’s editions of the NCAA Tournament
It will have a massive impact on the bracket and the field – with 24 teams needing to ‘play-in’
Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts and current president of the NCAA, has long been an advocate for expanding the tournament.
‘I think there’s some very good reasons to expand the tournament, so I would like to see it expand,’ Baker told reporters in February.
Expansion to 76 teams will see a complete overhaul and rebranding of the ‘First Four’ games of the tournament.
In this year’s edition of the tournament, four 16-seeds and four 11-seeds played each other in Dayton, Ohio for the right to play in the Round of 64.
Expansion to 76 teams will scrap that concept and will bloat the early rounds in a way that mostly harms the so called ‘low-major’ and ‘mid-major’ schools.
According to CBS, every single 16-seed and half of the potential 15-seeds would need to ‘play-in’ to the Round of 64 by winning an extra game on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The remaining play-in games would go to a matchup of 11-seeds and 12-seeds, with the potential for 13-seeds to take part as well.
If a 76-team field was included this year, Auburn would have been the first at-large bid with 16-losses in the history of the NCAA Tournament and would have slotted in as an 11-seed with San Diego State – which also missed the field.
NCAA President Charlie Baker has long been a proponent for tournament expansion
Instead of the ‘First Four’ games being play-ins, expansion will see 24 teams play 12 contests
One of the teams which would have made an expanded field this year includes 16-loss Auburn
Other schools that didn’t make this year’s tournament which would have been in an expanded field include Indiana, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, Arizona State and Cal.
Adding insult to injury, 15-seeds like Furman and Queens University would have been pushed back to the 16-seed line while 14-seeds Wright State and Kennesaw State would become 15-seeds.
Considering the expansion, the NCAA will be forced to move early-round games from Dayton – where every ‘play-in’ game has been held since 2001.
While Dayton will remain one of the sites for the expanded play in, another site will be chosen in one of the Central, Mountain or Pacific time zones, according to CBS.
These early games – temporarily branded as the ‘opening round’ – will also lead to a new TV lineup which will likely result in a tripleheader on Tuesday and Wednesday before the madness well and truly begins on Thursday.
The reality is that this is the NCAA’s answer to a money crunch it faces as lawsuits and settlements over NIL, eligibility and other issues continue to mount.
This is being done due to a lack of consistent revenue streams. At the Final Four this year, the NCAA removed dozens of media seats traditionally held in one end zone and converted them into luxury boxes which were sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
Additionally, the cash-cow that is the College Football Playoff is not within the NCAA’s purview – leaving the men’s version of March Madness as the only money-making enterprise for the collegiate sports governing body.
Fans of the sport have been overwhelmingly against tournament expansion for years
Fans and media have been very vocally opposed to the idea of tournament expansion since the idea of such massive change was first proposed under Baker. Now, despite the overwhelming will and desire of the American public to not add more teams, the NCAA is doing it anyway.
‘Nobody hates college sports more than the people who run college sports,’ wrote one user on X.
One comment read, ‘Ruining the one thing that has a 100% approval rating is peak NCAA.’
Another wrote, ‘This is horrible. Nobody wanted this. The bubble was putrid this year. Money grab to ruin the best tournament format in sports. Thank you, NCAA.’
‘You could convince me to live with 76 team field and not complain so long as the expanded part is for at-large only,’ wrote Jeff Lowe of Barstool Sports. ‘It’s not. It f***s over so many automatic qualifying teams. That alone is enough of a reason to call this dumb.’
‘Don’t let anyone tell you this is actually good,’ college basketball content creator Ryan Hammer posted. ‘Its for money & more access for power conference teams while the decision makers frame it as “more access for everyone” – that is a lie. Really is a shame they insist on changing the best postseason tournament in American sports.’
Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde wrote, ‘Everyone knew ncaa tournament expansion to 76 was inevitable. Almost nobody wants it. Those trying to argue its merits are gaslighting you. I’ve written it many times — it’s a lousy development that contributes to the erosion of what makes college sports great.’
