The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments may see an expansion in the near future, with plans to include 4-8 additional teams as early as the 2025-26 season. NCAA officials have presented various models of potential expansion to Division I conference commissioners, with one model suggesting an increase from the current 68-team field to 72 teams, and another proposing 76 teams in the field.
While power conferences are pushing for more at-large bids to increase revenue and provide more teams with the opportunity to compete for a championship, small-conference schools that rely on automatic qualifiers are concerned about being relegated to play-in games. The addition of more teams in the 10-12 seed range could lead to discussions about the format of the tournament and the inclusion of small-conference automatic qualifiers.
The NCAA tournament has already expanded from 64 to 68 teams in 2011, introducing the First Four play-in games in Dayton, Ohio. This expansion allowed for more teams to participate in the tournament and increased the excitement of March Madness. The women’s tournament followed suit in 2022, expanding to 68 teams as well.
While the expansion of the NCAA tournaments seems inevitable, there are still many details and logistics that need to be worked out by NCAA officials and conference commissioners. The balancing act between the interests of power conferences and small-conference schools will be crucial in determining the final format of the tournaments and ensuring that the integrity and competitiveness of the games are maintained. As discussions continue, it will be interesting to see how the tournaments evolve and what changes will be implemented to accommodate the expansion of the fields.