The March Madness expansion that absolutely no one wants is coming in 2027

The seemingly inevitable change that absolutely nobody wants appears to be coming in 2027.

According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the NCAA has initiated the final steps to expand the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments to 76 teams. The expansion is on track to be formalized in the upcoming weeks, and the new 76-team tournament formats will begin next year.

Advertisement

The news was met with the same reaction we’ve seen every time the idea of tournament expansion has been floated: Near universal disapproval.

While not unexpected at this point, messing with the least flawed postseason in all of American sports remains inexplicable and indefensible.

Outside of a handful of head coaches, athletic directors and television executives who stand to personally (but not sizably) benefit from this, nobody associated with college basketball wants this to happen.

Fans of the sport absolutely despise the idea. Media members who cover the sport mostly feel the same. The NCAA Tournament is already the most popular postseason in American sports. There’s no obvious competitive reason for the change. And in an era where massive change is driven by money and virtually nothing else, the financial implications of expansion would seem to be minimal when put up against the pushback from just about everyone who cares about March Madness.

Advertisement

There is simply no logical defense when it comes to messing with one of the few things in sports that just about everyone agrees shouldn’t be messed with it.

Side note: The irony of all ironies here is that if you polled every college basketball fan in the world and asked them what they would do to change the NCAA Tournament before the better, the most common response you would undoubtedly get would be to DECREASE the field back to 64 teams like it was from 1985-2001.

Despite its best efforts over decades littered with ineptitude and head-scratching decisions, the NCAA has consistently done one thing well: Organize a tournament that…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/march-madness-expansion-absolutely-no-142706974.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-04-29 14:27:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.