Greed Has Hit the NCAA Tournament
The NCAA Tournament has been 64 teams for a long time. Well, in truth, it's been 68 teams since it expanded in 2011. For a long time, there has been speculation that it would expand even further. Now, that appears to be a reality.
There are steps to go through to officially move the men's and women's NCAA Tournament from 68 to 76 teams, but those are now viewed as formalities. It's a foregone conclusion that the tourney will feature eight more teams as soon as next March Madness.
NCAA Tournament set to expand
The NCAA is set to expand the men's and women's tournaments to 76 teams, up from 68. If they get approval, this will take place as early as 2027. The next March Madness could very well look quite different. It has hoops to jump through, but those aren't likely to stand in the way.
"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 said in a statement.
According to a report, the primary driver of this has been power conferences, which have seen plenty of teams come into their folds recently. Those teams have to play one another, leaving them with worse records. That impacts their chances at the NCAA Tournament.
That does come into play, and while this is the alleged reason, it's not the only reason, and it doesn't even seem like the main reason. Money plays a big role, and it always has.
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Why expand?
There really was no good reason to expand the tournament to 68 teams back in 2011. The 64-team format was pretty perfect. It lasted just long enough, and there were plenty of teams to provide a chance for wild upsets and maximum entertainment. There are still wild upsets and plenty of entertainment, but we are quickly jumping the shark, so to speak.
All this is going to do is expand the First Four phase of the tournament. Instead of eight teams fighting for the last four spots in the field, there will now be 24 teams fighting for 12 spots. Primarily held at Dayton, this phase would now be split into two spots.
The discussion has been going on for over a year, but it's hard to believe that Miami (Ohio) making it into the tournament in 2026 isn't the sort of thing the NCAA is looking at. By including them, big-name (and big-money) schools like Auburn missed out. But with all these extra play-in teams, Auburn wouldn't miss out.
While sources say this will only be a modest financial gain for the NCAA, that has to be the primary goal here. By getting more big brands into the tournament and playing more games, there will be more revenue, and corporate greed appears to once again be the biggest factor in this.
Why this is bad for the sport
What makes this so bad for the sport is two primary things. First, it reeks of the greed that has driven the NIL and transfer portal era. Those two things are undeniably good for players who were previously exploited, but it has gone way too far and now gives big schools too much power. Now, they're going to have even more power.
Why would a star player at a mid-major ever consider sticking around rather than transferring to Oklahoma State, for example? Beforehand, the fact that they could get an easy bid into the tournament in the mid-major conference would've helped. Now, it won't matter.
The second reason is that it takes away some of what makes the tournament so interesting. Forecasting those final teams is fun. Predicting which resumes will hold up is a big part of the process. Now, there are fewer decisions to be made by the committee. There's no Miami (OH) versus Auburn, because both would get in.
