March Madness Expanding? NCAA President Hints at Huge Change

The NCAA is entertaining the idea of a bigger NCAA Tournament field.

Recently, NCAA president Charlie Baker added some more fuel to the fire with comments regarding the potential expansion, and it sounds like Baker and the NCAA are looking to expand sooner rather than later.

“We’ve been talking about 72 and 76,” Baker said about the number of teams that would be in the field if these changes happen. “Those have been the numbers the basketball committees talked about. It would obviously be one or the other, won’t be more.”

According to an article by Front Office Sports, the NCAA has been talking with media rights partners CBS and Warner Bros. about the potential expansion.

“We’ve had good conversations with CBS and WBD,” Baker said, according to FOS. “Our goal here is to try to either get to yes or no sometime in the next few months, because there’s a lot of logistical work that would be associated with doing this, if we were to go down this road.”

The NCAA Tournament began with just eight teams in the field back in 1939.

“In 1951, the field doubled to 16 and kept expanding sporadically over the next few decades until 1985, when the modern format of a 64-team tournament began,” says NCAA.com.

In 2011, the field expanded to 68 teams.

Back in March 2024, Pitt head coach Jeff Capel voiced his opinion regarding the expansion of the Big Dance.

“I get some of the purists, that you don’t mess it up, it’s at 68, you don’t mess it up. I wonder if people felt that way when it was at 16,” Capel said. “When it was at 16 and went to 32 it was probably a thing, but it got better. When it was at 32, it went to 48 and it was better. When it went to 64, it got better. And when you went to 68 and you introduced the First Four, it still was really, really good and so I think it should be change, I think it should be more opportunity.”