March Madness Tournaments To Expand To 76 Teams From Next Season

The NCAA announced connected Thursday that it will grow its 2 March Madness tournaments by 8 teams each adjacent season, a long-expected move that will driblet much games into nan first week of nan showcase without substantially changing its wide form.

The new, 76-team brackets will jam 8 other games – for a full of 12 involving 24 teams – into nan beforehand half of nan first week of nan men’s and nan women’s tournaments. It will move what’s now known arsenic nan First Four into a bigger matter that will now beryllium called nan “March Madness Opening Round”.

The 12 winners will move into nan main 64-team bracket that will begin, arsenic usual, connected Thursday for nan men and Friday for nan women. It is nan first description of nan tournaments successful 15 years, erstwhile they were bumped to 68 teams each.

The NCAA said it will administer much than $131m successful caller gross to schools that make nan tournament. That money will travel via expanded TV advertizing opportunities for alcohol, nan likes of which were antecedently restricted. It said nan worth of nan authorities statement will summation $50m each twelvemonth connected mean complete nan people of nan six years.

Most of nan 8 caller slots are expected to spell to teams from nan powerfulness conferences that were already commanding nan lion’s stock of entries successful nan bracket. Two years ago, nan Southeastern Conference placed a grounds 14 teams successful nan men’s bracket. Last season, nan Big Ten had nine.

Keith Gill, nan president of nan Division I men’s hoops committee, called nan description “a bully measurement to create immoderate entree but make judge we person nan bracket we each emotion erstwhile we commencement Thursday astatine noon.”

The move is simply a merchandise of nan times, which includes monolithic description – nan Atlantic Coast Conference, for instance, has grown from 9 to 17 teams since 1996 – and nan reality that mid-major schools pinch top-notch players will often spot them plucked distant by programs pinch bigger budgets and nan expertise to salary them done gross sharing.

Leaders successful nan SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC person each acknowledged that smaller programs thief make March Madness what it is, each nan while steadily expanding their ain powerfulness successful NCAA decision-making. That brings pinch it nan tacit threat of fracturing nan azygous point nan NCAA does champion – nan hoops tournament.

This move mightiness forestall that. What it isn’t expected to do is drastically alteration nan TV woody beyond nan advertising. The existent woody for nan men’s tourney is worthy $8.8bn and runs done 2032. Adding a fewer other games betwixt mid-level Power Four teams connected Tuesday and Wednesday won’t alteration that much.

One of reasons this took arsenic agelong arsenic it did was nan NCAA negotiations pinch CBS and TNT, which themselves person been successful negotiations complete their ain ownership.

The much drastic action of expanding nan tourney to 96 teams aliases beyond would impact adding an other week to a tourney that has thrived successful portion because of nan symmetry of a six-round bracket that gets whittled down complete 3 weeks. That basal ammunition began successful 1985, pinch only flimsy tweaks, nan latest of which came successful 2011 erstwhile it was upped to 68.