NCAA Basketball: Is NCAA Tournament expansion past 68 teams a good idea?

Good For the Game?

The NCAA always claims they are out to find what is best for the game and what is best for the student-athletes. No, that was not supposed to be satire, that is truly what the NCAA believes. While they do often miss the mark this is one case where they may be on to something, at least on the surface. If the NCAA and the NCAA tournament committee do this correctly this will be great for the game. It will give mid-majors more exposure and could create a system in which more deserving teams make the NCAA tournament.

That would require the NCAA to do this the right way though and not give preferential treatment to the teams from the power conferences. That practice would destroy mid and low-major basketball and would make the NCAA tournament unwatchable for most of the casual fans. Mid Majors are the storylines everyone cares about anyways. Florida Atlantic making the Final Four, Fairleigh Dickinson and UMBC beating a 16 seed, Oral Roberts, Florida Gulf Coast, and Saint Peter’s run to the Sweet 16. The Elite Eight for Saint Peter’s. Those are the storylines that keep everyone coming back. Expansion needs to keep those teams eligible to play and give more mid and low major teams a chance to play in the NCAA tournament to really grow the game.

I know the argument is going to be about money, and that is ultimately the reason that the tournament is going to expand. It will be to make more money for the NCAA. However, this is also going to be good for the game as any team who makes the NCAA tournament and wins a game is given a share of the NCAA tournament schedule. For example, each conference receives a unit for each team making the NCAA tournament. The conference and team each receive an additional unit for each win in the NCAA tournament.

The longer teams go in March the more units they will receive for the conference. Every unit price goes up by 3% from the previous tournament and by giving more teams a chance in the tournament there will be more money to spread around for arena upgrades, recruiting budgets, better concessions.

The most important thing though is that they will have a higher operating budget which means over time those teams could be playing fewer buy games which overall gives a better product. That means instead of Duke playing Bethune-Cookman, Bethune-Cookman may have enough budget to operate for the year and they can play a team of similar talent and be more competitive. Duke can then use that open date for a team of like competition for a tougher game for them.

Obviously, that was all just speculation, and that scenario could happen with more money to go around but that doesn’t mean that it will. The overall point of that was to further drive home that if this is done properly, meaning giving the low and mid-majors the same opportunities as power schools, to fill out the field then it will be good for the game. If the extra spots are given to 17-15 power schools that will honestly drive down the product in the long run and will be hard for the casual fan to watch and care anymore.