Despite the outcries against it, NCAA tournament expansion 'will happen.' Here's why that's the case

Ross DellengerThu, April 2, 2026 at 1:59 PM UTC

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INDIANAPOLIS — Two years ago last month, as negotiations over the future of the College Football Playoff heated up, executives from college sports’ richest and most powerful conferences, the SEC and Big Ten, gave all other FBS leagues an ultimatum.

If the two conferences were not granted a majority of the money and decision-making authority within the College Football Playoff, they’d start their own postseason event and leave everyone else behind once the contract ends in 2026.

If that seems like a bluff or fantasy, take for instance SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s comments in 2024 reliving those negotiations: “There was a belief that all of us had to stay together as is. I never viewed it that way.”

Now, some 25 months after those conferences threatened to implode football’s postseason, the basketball version — the NCAA tournament, the industry’s crown jewel — enters its most seminal stretch.

A controversial expanded tournament concept is on the horizon; the end of the event’s television contract is a mere five years away; and the gap between the haves and have-nots — attributed mostly to conference realignment, athlete compensation and transfer movement — has never existed in such a significant way as it does today.

As the glass slipper-wearing mid-major programs claw to keep up with the big-spending blue bloods, an inevitable question arises: When do the richest and wealthiest leagues threaten to go their own way on the hardwood, too?

“Like a lot of things in this industry, I don’t think it’s a matter of if, I think it’s a matter of when,” said Connecticut athletic director David Benedict. “If there was a breakaway, I’d like to think the Big East would be included based on the success of our league.”

This weekend, here in the home of NCAA headquarters itself, the Final Four unfolds to cap another scintillating Big Dance. It is an intriguing foursome: UConn of the Big East, Arizona of the Big 12, and two Big Ten teams, Michigan and Illinois, which are both attempting to win that league’s first title since 2000.

While this year’s event produced record television viewership numbers, plenty of upsets and a host of wild endings, it was missing something: A team from outside of the five basketball power leagues — SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Big East — failed to advance to the Sweet 16 for a second consecutive season.

An explanation of the trend — why is Cinderella dead or dying? — is perhaps not as important as something else.

In the most financially stressful time in college athletics history and considering their success in these events in general, the power leagues are aggressively seeking more access and revenue in NCAA championships — a concerted effort that began in earnest two years ago with the football threat.

There are other examples of this pursuit, such as a proposal from the four football power leagues last year, authored by the SEC, that would grant them full control of NCAA championships; and NCAA governance changes last year that modified the weighted voting structure; and, most recently, a proposal that expands the NCAA tournament to 76 teams, adding eight at-large selections, most of which are certain to provide the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Big East with more participants.

In the most financially stressful time in college athletics history, the power leagues see NCAA tournament expansion as a key path to increasing access and revenue. (Dillon Minshall/Yahoo Sports)

Is NCAA tournament expansion a way to appease power league executives ahead of any negotiations of a new men’s basketball tournament contract? Perhaps.

“This is the greatest three weeks on the planet,” said Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill, a member of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee. “You can’t manufacture this. It’s the one thing that binds us all together. Is it disproportionate at times? Yes.

“But it’s our job to protect this event. There are pressures and the Power Four have shared that with us. We’re not putting our heads in the sand.”

NCAA expansion: 'It will happen'

Soon after the completion of this year’s NCAA tournament, NCAA leadership and members of the association’s basketball committees — both the selection and oversight groups — are expected to finalize an expansion of the men’s and women’s tournaments to 76 teams.

Barring something unforeseen, “it will happen,” says one high-placed source.

According to a proposal socialized with members last year, eight games would be added to the current “First Four” played over Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week of the event. This new “opening round” — the verbiage used to describe it — would feature 24 teams playing in 12 games over the two days at two sites (Dayton and another). Those involved in the negotiations caution that plenty of this could change through the course of continuing talks with TV partners Warner Bros. Discovery and CBS.

The 12 winners of the opening-round games — likely six games pitting lower-seeded automatic qualifiers and six pitting at-large teams — advance to an awaiting 52 teams in the original bracket. Under this concept, eight teams are extracted from the main bracket, plus the eight new at-large selections from expansion.

Leaders at the Big 12 and ACC, perhaps more than others, have aggressively pushed for the expansion of the tournament.

But so has NCAA president Charlie Baker, who views it as a way for deserving bubble teams to extend their seasons — and potentially win a game, too. Two of this tournament’s last teams in, 11 seeds Texas and Miami of Ohio, won a combined three games.

“There are every year some really good teams that don’t get to the tournament for a bunch of reasons,” Baker said last fall. “One of the reasons is we have 32 automatic qualifiers [for conference champions]. I love that and think it’s great and never want that to change, but that means there’s only 36 slots left for everybody else.”

However, there is an unsaid reason for expansion: paving the way for more access for power league programs that likely control the future of the event. Over the last five years, 15 of 20 teams that the selection committee deemed as the “last four out” of the tournament have been from the power conferences.

“I want to see the best teams competing for a national championship, no different than [the Big Ten and SEC] want to see in football,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said in a 2024 interview. “I’m not sure that is currently happening.”

In the past, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips called for a “holistic review” of the tournament that more considered a league’s “value and contribution.”

In the last 20 NCAA tournaments, no league has a better winning percentage than the ACC (61.9%), according to data from Sports Reference. Five conferences — the Big 12, ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Big East and members of the old Pac-12 — have won more than 900 NCAA tournament games since 2006. The other 26 leagues have won 321.

While the gap among those power conference programs appears to be closing with the advent of athlete compensation and free transferring, the chasm between the five and everyone else feels greater than ever, says John David Wicker, the San Diego State athletic director whose Aztecs in 2024 were the last non-power program to advance to the Sweet 16.

“The above-the-cap dollars are dramatically impacting schools at a lower level more than I thought they would,” Wicker said. “You hear people talking about basketball rosters of $8-15 million. How is that even possible?”

Like many, Wicker believes that the industry’s new enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission, has the ability to usher in a more equitable environment. The College Sports Commission, charged with policing athlete compensation by assuring that schools remain within the revenue-share cap, is using a clearinghouse (NIL Go) to approve or reject third-party NIL dollars that schools are using to balloon their rosters above the cap and gain a competitive advantage.

In fact, the CSC faces its first serious challenge of rejected NIL deals from 18 Nebraska football players, as well as two Georgia women athletes.

“You’ll be able to keep some competition across the board if the CSC does what it is supposed to do,” Wicker said. “If the CSC loses both of these arbitrations, there are no rules at that point.”

Can the CSC save Cinderella?

Most industry insiders believe that roster values in men’s basketball have doubled each of the last three years. Next year, one agent expects the number of programs spending at least $10 million to reach 50 and the top recruits to command at least $3 million each.

For comparison’s sake, Utah State publicly released earlier this year that it spent $2.4 million on its basketball roster — a figure that is likely at the very top end among non-power league programs.

“The playing field has been tilted for years,” said Jeff Jackson, the commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference, whose tournament-winning percentage of 50.8% is the second-best among non-power leagues since 2006. “Just like any enterprise, you want to know that the people you are competing against are singing from the same hymnal. I’m not sure you can say that.”

What happens in 2031?

The inevitable expansion of the NCAA tournament is only one piece of a larger conversation about the future of the event.

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Keeping the NCAA intact — all 350 plus Division I schools operating under one national association — has been a central goal for industry stakeholders for the last decade. Financial disparities, splintering not just Division I but the 137-school FBS and even the 68-member power football group, is making it more difficult.

It’s been top of mind, most notably, for Baker, who agreed to the landmark 10-year settlement of three antitrust cases (House), in part to secure Division I unity for another decade. The NCAA office and non-power leagues are footing 60% of about $2.8 billion of backpay to athletes, most of whom formerly played in the power leagues.

But nothing works as better glue to bind Division I than the NCAA tournament. In fact, the event has emerged over the years as a deterrent for a breakaway of the power football conferences whose executives either cherish the event (Sankey has said this publicly), fear political backlash, or both. One of the hurdles, for instance, in the SEC and Big Ten’s ongoing but separate discussions over governing themselves is none other than March Madness.

In five years, that hurdle disappears.

The NCAA’s contract with TV partners CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery expires after the 2031 tournament. Negotiations over any new tournament fall amid a key stretch of years — 2029-2032 – when many within the college athletics industry expect significant change, including conference realignment and alterations to postseason events.

Existing media rights agreements in the Big 12 (Fox and ESPN) and Big Ten (NBC and CBS) expire over that stretch (however, the Big Ten’s deal with Fox runs through 2036). The SEC is likely to enter into an early renegotiation window with ESPN, and the ACC’s exit fees drop below $100 million during that span.

The College Football Playoff deal expires after the 2032 postseason, too.

All of this may impact any decision as it relates to the Big Dance, specifically concerning the future of automatic qualifying bids (should all 32 be preserved?) and the future of the revenue distribution model (will it go the way of others — an uneven distribution model?).

“I could see the units being weighted more heavily toward the Power Four in the future,” said Florida State athletic director Michael Alford, whose school sued the ACC in a case that ultimately resulted in uneven distribution in that conference.

“It’s not hard to imagine a formula that pays [monetary] units in later rounds that are worth more than units in earlier rounds,” Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said. “I can see that debate.”

They are far from alone in that thinking.

In fact, many within and outside the industry believe that the NCAA tournament’s distribution model — described by some as “outdated” and “archaic” — does not distribute enough of the some-odd $1 billion in men’s basketball tournament television revenue directly to schools for performance in the event.

For instance, roughly $200 million — or 20% — of the television money is tied to schools for their participation and performance in the tournament.

“We’re getting 25-30% of the distribution,” said Benedict, the UConn athletic director who has a team in both the men’s and women’s Final Four this year. “I understand that the rest of the money goes back to the members in different forms, but that flies in the face of the new environment. You’re having to share revenue based on the market and the market [NCAA distribution model] isn’t factoring in the full impact of college basketball. The NCAA budget is basically leaving off the other 75%.”

According to the NCAA’s 2024-25 consolidated financial statements, the governing body distributed roughly $600 million directly to its members — the $200 million through men’s basketball play, plus $400 million through a variety of other funds. The two most lucrative other funds are distributed to schools based on the number of sports they sponsor ($181 million) and their academic success ($107 million).

Roughly $500 million is devoted to the NCAA operating Division I championships ($206M), providing Division II and Division III with subsidies ($112M) and paying for athlete insurance and other services ($85 million). Most of the rest is for operating expenses, which include stiff legal fees for fighting court cases, many of which are lawsuits supported by their own member schools.

For instance, the NCAA has spent $16 million alone in fighting eligibility lawsuits over the last year.

“When I think about looking at the tournament, I speak to how the expenses and revenues are shared,” said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel. “We as a membership make the rules of the NCAA and determine how to fund the other championships we have. How do we want to proceed with that? Somebody’s got to pay for the championships we have. I don’t hold that against the NCAA.”

But does the model need changing to align with the current environment?

“I’ve heard some griping about that. Is there a different way of dividing the pie when this deal comes up in 2031?” Ackerman asks.

The NCAA’s current distribution system was created in the 1990s and set up in a way where the football schools would get two-thirds of the money, says Amy Perko, the CEO of the Knight Commission, which promotes reforms that support and strengthen the educational mission of college sports. While there have been noted changes over time — the addition of the academic fund, the new women’s basketball tournament units, etc. — one-quarter of the formula is devoted to rewarding schools for providing scholarship opportunities, including about $60 million to subsidize football scholarships for FBS despite the NCAA having no part in the FBS championship.

“Since the NCAA does not conduct the FBS football championship nor does it control revenues associated with that sport,” Perko contends, “the opportunity and athletics scholarship incentives for that sport [FBS football] should be provided by the separate and independent CFP revenue distribution.”

The Club

In 2021, the NCAA retained a law firm, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, to conduct a comprehensive external review of gender-equity issues in connection with NCAA championships, sparked by disparities between the women’s and men’s basketball tournaments.

In its research, the firm unearthed what had previously been unreported: The NCAA was missing out on millions of sponsorship dollars for its many postseason championships because of a bizarre contractual clause in its agreement with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery.

The agreement requires brands and businesses wishing to sponsor any particular NCAA championship to buy into the costly sponsorship of the men’s basketball tournament — what’s described in the report as the NCAA Corporate Partner Program.

The substantial cost of buy-in to the NCAA Corporate Partner Program “places a very high practical financial hurdle in front of those that might be interested in supporting” the women’s tournament or other championships “because of the significant mandated advertising spend CBS/Turner insist upon to support the” men’s tournament, the report said.

“The NCAA tournament is maximized, but all the other championship events probably have a lot of other opportunities they are missing,” said Jason Belzer, a venture partner with Sequence Equity and a sports attorney who has negotiated more than $80 million in NIL contracts. “If you’re a business, you can’t really monetize any sponsorship and media rights of other championships.”

Could the negotiations over expanding the tournament also involve the amending of a clause costing the organization millions of dollars?

NCAA officials do not comment on active negotiations. But those with knowledge of the negotiations point to such a change as another reason for expansion.

There are more reasons to expand the event, too. In fact, there are 10.3 million reasons to do so. That’s the number of viewers who watched the NCAA tournament through the Elite Eight round — the highest ratings since 1993.

“I’m not backing off what I’ve stated previously: Basketball is undervalued,” Yormark said this week. “It’s playing out just the way I thought it would, with increased ratings and increased engagement and viewership starting with the regular season and continuing into the tournament.”

The uptick in viewership, while a reason to potentially expand, may be a reason to keep the tournament in its current form once the contract expires, mid-major officials say.

Jeff Bacon, the commissioner of the Atlantic Sun, compares what’s unfolding within college sports to English soccer, where a handful of the wealthiest and most successful clubs broke away from the English Football League in 1992 to form what is now the Premier League.

However, all English Football League clubs compete together in the annual FA Cup, an elimination-style tournament similar to March Madness.

“I’d keep the basketball tournament together like the FA Cup where everyone competes,” Bacon said. “Everything English soccer went through we are going through right now. In the FA Cup, the little guys and big guys match up in a tournament but play separately in their divisions the rest of the year.”

Sankey, the SEC commissioner who offered that ultimatum to the FBS leagues two years ago, is, in fact, an avid reader who has spoken publicly about the many books he’s read. That list, interestingly enough, includes a 2018 work by the authors Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg called “The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports.”

“I do think that in a world where there is another basketball tournament created,” said Benedict, “and that tournament said to the conferences, ‘Hey, we are going to compensate you directly and share 75% of the revenue, well, the environment typically moves to where the money moves.”

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