The NCAA tournament stays with 68 teams. For now.
After months of debate, the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division-i Basketball Committees announced on Monday that they will not recommend the expansion prior to the 2026 late season.
“Expanding the tournament fields is no longer considered for the men’s and women’s basketball championships for men and ladies,” said Gavitt, senior vice president of basketball of the NCAA, in a statement. “However, the committees will continue with conversations whether they want to recommend expanding to 72 or 76 teams prior to the 2027 championships.”
With the beginning of the 2025-26 season in less than three months, it was less likely that expansion would be implemented on time for the 2026 tournaments.
While many Power-Conference Commissioners and High Major Coaches Hebben argued for the growth of the current 68 teams fields, public opinion has been considerably against expansion. A vote on expansion was initially expected earlier in July, when the basketball committees for men and ladies met for summer meetings in Savannah, Ga., And Philadelphia, but no counting was released. That meant that expansion momentum was delayed, while widespread recoil from fans and prominent media members became louder.
This Tour of NCAA Tournament Expansion interviews dates from January 2023, when the transformation committee of the NCAA recommended increased “access” to the after season sponsored by more than 200 division i-institutions. But the recommended Postseason threshold of the 25-percent commission-25 percent of the team March Madness have blown up at 91-Plus teams, given the 363 schools that are currently playing men’s basketball ball. There was never much public or internal appetite for such a large field. But in the era of the reclosure of the conference, high major commissioners who wanted to dance more of their schools to dance to the expansion concept. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has been one of the driving forces of the movement and doubled his sentiment during the football event of the conference in July.
“Nothing in college basketball is static,” Sankey said. “So tournament expansion is definitely worth exploring.”
The argument of pro-expansion is that since the last major expansion of the NCAA tournament-in 1985, when the event grew to its old 64 team of ITERatie-Division-I has grown with more than 100 new programs. There is also the conviction that adding more March Madness games would yield more income for teams that make the field, although that financial reality behind the scenes still has to be helped. (The NCAA has collaborated with its TV partners, CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery, to find the income – namely through sponsorship – to compensate for adding more teams and organizing more games.)
The current NCAA deal with CBS and WBD runs until 2032 and pays $ 1 billion annually, but the networks do not have to increase that payment for a larger field.
Those who want to see the tournaments at the age of 68 claim that although Division I has been dramatically expanded since 1985, any additional bids that arise from expansion to the schools at a lower level from one bid competitions that have taken place the majority of that expansion. Instead, opponents claim, expanding the field would result in bids for more medium-major teams, which enriches conferences with extra TV distributions while watering the quality of the game after the season.
Until then, the first four teams from the NCAA tournament for men were omitted West Virginia (Big 12), Indiana (Big ten), Ohio State (Big ten) and Boise State (Mountain West) last season. In the meantime, Sankey’s SEC established a Madness record when 14 out of 16 members made the field.
If the tournament expansion takes place in 2027, this is likely to result in an extensive “first four”, the number of games on Tuesday and Wednesday after selection will double (or triples). In a field of 72 teams, for example, there would be four races each on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of two-two on a second site next to Dayton, Ohio, who organizes the first four annually.
Now discussions about what an extensive format could look like – and whether it is worth exploring – will continue in a different season … at least.
(Photo: Emilee Chinn / Getty images)
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