The NCAA has initiated the final steps to expand the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments to 76 teams, sources told ESPN.
The expansion, which has been discussed for well over a year, is on track to be formalized in the upcoming weeks and would begin this coming season. Sources indicated mid-May as a potential timeline for an announcement.
While there are still steps to take in terms of approvals via various NCAA committees, a source indicated “those are just formalities.”
“They have what they need to move forward,” a source said.
NCAA officials met with the media partners for the men’s tournament last week, sources told ESPN. The sides are in the final steps of the media contracts, per sources, but they have not been signed.
The NCAA also will need approval once the contracts are done from various committees that include the men’s and women’s basketball committees, the men’s and women’s basketball oversight committees, the Division I Cabinet and the DI Board of Governors.
In order for the various NCAA committees to vote, the contracts will need to be signed for their approval.
The expansion isn’t expected to be a financial windfall, but sources stressed there will be a profit.
The added finances will cover the additional logistics cost for both the men’s and women’s tournaments, the additional units that will come into play and still deliver “a modest financial upside.”
The driver of this move hasn’t been money, but rather access. The expansion has been driven by power conferences, which have grown throughout the course of the current deal.
The mechanics of the expansion in the men’s tournament will include eight additional at-large bids. What’s known now as the First Four — eight teams playing four games in Dayton, Ohio — will expand to 12 games played by 24 teams at two different sites, one of which is expected to remain in Dayton.
The location of the new site has yet to be determined, but it is expected to be located west of the Eastern Time Zone to help logistics.
The expansion would lead to an additional eight men’s games, meaning the Tuesday and Wednesday of the NCAA tournament will feature 24 of the 76 men’s teams. That number now includes eight teams who would have qualified for the traditional bracket that will square off against the eight at-large additions.
The traditional 64-team men’s team bracket will still begin on Thursday and look much the same. The major difference here will be more teams who qualify as traditional at-larges will have to play earlier the 64-team bracket.
