The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are expanding to 76 teams. That news became official Thursday.
The expansion is being positioned as a way to get more mid-majors into the field, when, primarily, the universities that will benefit the most by this move will still be the power conferences.
As if they need it. The SEC got 14 of its 16 teams into the 2025 tournament.
Fewer one-bid conference champions will experience the true bracket now. That’s because all the 16-seed lines and two 15-seed lines will be determined by play-in results on Tuesday or Wednesday of Week 1 in Dayton and/or whatever city becomes Dayton 2.0 as the other “Opening Round” host. With the Field of 68, it had previously been just two 16-seed lines that were determined by Dayton “First Four” results.
It’s a money grab for more March Madness TV slots on the networks and a way to placate the power conference administrators, coaches, athletic directors and school presidents.
It’s a shortsighted decision that minimizes the achievement of qualifying for the tournament, dilutes the quality of participating teams and waters down the importance of the regular season. It also bloats the tournament calendar, complicates the simplicity of the brackets and infringes on those previously special holy days that were the Thursday and Friday that open March Madness.
Aside from all that, hey, it’s a great idea
Take a look at how many folks oppose an expanded tournament.
What is your preferred amount of teams in the NCAA basketball tournament?
— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) May 6, 2026
Did you do the quick math there? Add those top two numbers together. That means more than 96% of people agree that the tournament shouldn’t expand at all, let alone to 76 teams.
Ninety-six percent!? This is America in 2026. You can’t get 96% of people to agree on … anything.
I could walk down Carson Street tomorrow and offer the first 100 people I see a free cherry-chocolate milkshake or charge them $10 for a mug of battery acid, and I bet I’d get at least five people to tell me, “Eh, I’m lactose intolerant, so gimme the battery acid.”
No one wants this. Bigger is not always better. More is not always necessary. And, sorry Gordon Gekko, greed is not always good.
But no one listened at the NCAA level, and no one will pay attention in the offices of the NFL either. That’s where we can find another developing example of too much of a good thing.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently told Vanity Fair that he’s hoping an 18th game will be added to the NFL schedule.
“In our new labor agreement, I hope we go to 18 games and two preseason games,” Kraft said. “If we do that, it would allow us to hopefully go to 16 international games, so we would have every team, every year play an international game, which would be built mainly through a streaming audience.”
The current labor deal expires after the 2030 campaign. But ProFootballTalk.com says an 18th-game agreement with the NFL Players Association anytime before then — perhaps as early as next year — shouldn’t be ruled out.
Once again, the fans I’m interacting with want no part of that. Almost 73% of respondents to a different poll would prefer to see the NFL schedule remain at 17 games, or even roll back to 16 games.
If you were in charge, the NFL season would…
— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) May 6, 2026
The reasons are obvious. Fans don’t care about the international games. They don’t want more holiday and midweek broadcast windows. A season that already stretches from early September to mid-February is plenty long enough as it is. The two byes associated with an 18-game campaign are choppy and boring.
The more games teams play, the less impactful each individual game is. Most importantly, an 18th regular-season game could result in more injuries to star players, who may then be out for the postseason. And for bad teams that are out of it in November, it would create an atmosphere that will encourage tanking.
Not to mention, there isn’t a fan alive who cares if this means more network television money for the teams and the players. What the fans do care about is the likelihood of season-ticket price increases and one more gameday of traffic, overpriced concessions and excessive parking costs.
Awesome plan, Roger Goodell. Everybody seems on board.
Even with the caveat of dropping one of the meaningless preseason games, I don’t need to see an 18th week.
The great irony here is that if the NFL could, it’d probably expand so that games went deeper into February and maybe even March. But many networks (mainly CBS and ESPN) would then run into conflicts with — you guessed it — college basketball conference tournaments and March Madness.
At this rate, the Super Bowl halftime show might be replaced by a 16-seed “Opening Round” game played on a hardwood court set up on the 50-yard line in between the second and third quarters.
Actually, I should delete that line. I don’t want to give the NFL and the NCAA any ideas.