NCAA Tournament expected to increase to 76 teams

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The NCAA is expected to finalize an expansion of the men’s and women’s tournaments to 76 teams soon after the completion of this year’s March Madness tournament, per Yahoo Sports' @RossDellenger.

Barring something unforeseen, “it will happen,” a high-placed source told Dellenger.

The proposal would add eight games to the First Four, with 24 teams playing in an opening round before advancing into the second round.

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INDIANAPOLIS — Two years ago last month, as negotiations over the future of the College Football Playoff heated up, executives from college sports’ richest and most powerful conferences, the SEC and Big Ten, gave all other FBS leagues an ultimatum.

If the two conferences were not granted a majority of the money and decision-making authority within the College Football Playoff, they’d start their own postseason event and leave everyone else behind once the contract ends in 2026.

If that seems like a bluff or fantasy, take for instance SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s comments in 2024 reliving those negotiations: “There was a belief that all of us had to stay together as is. I never viewed it that way.”

Now, some 25 months after those conferences threatened to implode football’s postseason, the basketball version — the NCAA tournament, the industry’s crown jewel — enters its most seminal stretch.

A controversial expanded tournament concept is on the horizon; the end of the event’s television contract is a mere five years away; and the gap between the haves and have-nots — attributed mostly to conference realignment, athlete compensation and transfer movement — has never existed in such a significant way as it does today.

As the glass slipper-wearing mid-major programs claw to keep up with the big-spending blue bloods, an inevitable question arises: When do the richest and wealthiest leagues threaten to go their own way on the hardwood, too?

“Like a lot of things in this industry, I don’t think it’s a matter of if, I think it’s a matter of when,” said Connecticut athletic director David Benedict. “If there was a breakaway, I’d like to think the Big East would be included based on the success of our league.”

This weekend, here in the home of NCAA headquarters itself, the Final Four unfolds to cap another scintillating Big Dance. It is an intriguing foursome: UConn of the Big East, Arizona of the Big 12, and two Big Ten teams, Michigan and Illinois, which are both attempting to win that league’s first title since 2000.

While this year’s event produced record television viewership numbers, plenty of upsets and a host of wild endings, it was missing something: A team from outside of the five basketball power leagues — SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Big East — failed to advance to the Sweet 16 for a second consecutive season.

An explanation of the trend — why is Cinderella dead or dying? — is perhaps not as important as something else.

In the most financially stressful time in college athletics history and considering their success in these events in general, the power leagues are aggressively seeking more access and revenue in NCAA championships — a concerted effort that began in earnest two years ago with the football threat.

There are other examples of this pursuit, such as a proposal from the four football power leagues last year, authored by the SEC, that would grant them full control of NCAA championships; and NCAA governance changes last year that modified the weighted voting structure; and, most recently, a proposal that expands the NCAA tournament to 76 teams, adding eight at-large selections, most of which are certain to provide the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Big East with more participants.

Is NCAA tournament expansion a way to appease power league executives ahead of any negotiations of a new men’s basketball tournament contract? Perhaps.

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