March Madness expanding to 76 teams in 2027 with new alcohol ads fueling increase in games

The magical March Madness cocktail will now include eight more teams, eight more games and more of one other ingredient, too: beer. Maybe wine, too.

The NCAA on Thursday announced a long-expected expansion of its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams each starting next season, explaining that it made the money part work by opening sponsorship opportunities to a long-restricted alcohol category.

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“I would say that expansion would not have happened without that agreement,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball.

March Madness logo displayed at center court during the opening rounds of the NCAA college basketball tournament in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. AP

The new, 76-team brackets will jam eight extra games — for a total of 12 involving 24 teams — into the front half of the first week of each tournament. It will turn what’s now known as the First Four into a bigger affair that will now be called the March Madness Opening Round.

The 12 winners will move into the main 64-team bracket that will begin, as usual, on Thursday for the men and Friday for the women. In all, there will now be 120 games across the two tournaments over seven days to set the table for the Sweet 16s.

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“Things will look a little different, but feel very, very similar,” said Amanda Braun, the women’s tournament committee chair.

Because the added games were unlikely to sell themselves, the first expansion of the tournaments in 15 years — when they were bumped to 68 teams each — will be bankrolled by around $300 million in extra funding courtesy of new sponsorship opportunities for beer, wine, spirits and hard seltzer that includes more advertising space on CBS, TNT and other partners whose $8.8 billion deal runs through 2032.

The NCAA said it will distribute more than $131 million of the new revenue to schools that make the tournament.

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Publish date : 2026-05-08 02:07:00

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