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The vast majority of college basketball fans would tell you there’s zero reason to mess with the NCAA Tournament, but it looks like the governing body that runs it is nonetheless gearing up to expand March Madness with a plan that could end up setting the stage for an even more dramatic overhaul.
Only eight teams were invited to participate in the inaugural NCAA Tournament when it was held all the way back in 1939. It expanded to 16 in 1951 before growing to 32 in 1975, and in 1985, March Madness achieved what is arguably basketball perfection when it adopted a field featuring 64 schools.
The status quo was slightly altered in 2001 when the NCAA introduced a single play-in game to determine the 16th seed in the Midwest Region, which ultimately led to the “First Four” being introduced a decade later.
I’d argue the supplemental contests that were introduced in the 21st century are the textbook definition of a solution in search of a problem. Sure, they gave a few more teams a chance to punch their ticket to The Big Dance, and while some schools have been able to take advantage and make a deep run (VCU made it to the Final Four in 2011), they haven’t really added that much intrigue.
When you consider around $1 billion of the $1.3 billion the NCAA rakes in on an annual basis is generated by March Madness, it’s easy to understand why it would want to milk that cash cow for everything it’s worth.
Over the past couple of years, there have been plenty of rumblings about expanding the size of the tournament even though most fans seem to be vocally opposed to the idea, and it would appear it’s only a matter of time until those fears are realized.
According to Yahoo Sports, the NCAA recently presented a couple of conferences with two plans that would involve expanding March Madness to either 72 or 76 teams and adding a second site to host the preliminary games. It’s not entirely clear how the qualifying brackets would be structured, but it appears it would involve throwing more teams into the mix to firm up lower seeds.
While it does feel like expansion is inevitable, I think it’s fair to be a bit concerned about March Madness potentially suffering a death by 1,000 cuts. The addition of four or eight teams isn’t as drastic as other rumored proposals concerning a field of 90 or even 128 schools, but it sure feels like the NCAA is slowly but surely working its way toward a higher number with the help of incremental tweaks.
I’d love to be proven wrong in the long run, but I can’t say I’m too optimistic.