The NCAA is still deliberating expanding March Madness on both the men’s and women’s sides to 76 teams for next season – a much-expected development that has been in the works for years.
The NCAA released a brief statement Tuesday in the wake of an ESPN report that cited unnamed sources saying a decision to add eight teams to the bracket is a mere formality that’s expected in May.
“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 statement said.
Earlier this month at the Final Four, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the committees would, in fact, return to discussing the expansion once this year’s tournament was over.
The tournaments have been at 68 teams since 2011, when four play-in games were added to the beginning of the first week of play. The new format would add eight more at-large teams and take eight more teams out of the main bracket for play-in games.
The expansion isn’t expected to generate a lot more income because it will only add games early in the first week. The current TV deal runs through 2032 and could be tweaked slightly.
Any traditional one-bid conferences like the Big West shouldn’t get their hopes up that this is going to create more opportunities for them. The primary driver for the expansion is to give power conferences more chances to place teams in the bracket – a growing concern as those conferences seek more power and control over college sports in the era of name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation and the transfer portal.
The mechanics of the expansion in the men’s tournament what’s known now as the First Four – eight teams playing four games in Dayton, Ohio – would expand to 12 games played by 24 teams at two sites, one of which was expected to remain in Dayton.
The location of the new site has yet to be determined, but ESPN reported that it was expected to be west of the Eastern time zone to help with logistics.
The expansion would create eight additional men’s games, meaning the Tuesday and Wednesday of the NCAA Tournament would feature 24 of the 76 men’s teams.
The traditional 64-team men’s team bracket would still begin Thursday and look much the same. The major difference would be more teams that qualify as traditional at-larges would have to play earlier than the 64-team bracket.