NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt announced Monday that the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Championship will not exceed 68 teams, but future growth is possible.
“The expansion of the competition area is no longer considered in the 2026 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship,” Garwitt said in a statement.
“However, the committee will continue to talk about whether it is recommended to expand it to 72 or 76 teams before the 2027 Championship.”
Fans, well-known media members against NCAA Championship expansion
The NCAA has been considering a decision to expand March Madness to 72 or 76 teams in the 2025-26 season. According to Brendan Marks of Track and Field, widespread opposition from fans and prominent media members led to the news.
According to an ESPN report, NCAA President Charlie Baker said last month that the biggest obstacle to accelerating tournament expansion ahead of the upcoming school year is logistics.
“The match has to start after the meeting championship ends,” he said. “Now, Sunday’s choices take place two hours after the last game and have to end on Tuesday before the Masters. There isn’t a lot of room there. Any expansion, we have to figure out how to put it in and then do the logistics to get it working.”
Baker has said that adding teams can make the game more interesting, saying the NCAA has had “good conversations” with TV partners CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
NCAA’s current transactions with CBS and WBD continue until 2032, paying $1 billion a year, but these networks do not have to pay more for larger areas.
Expansion will provide more opportunities for valuable teams
Baker said in May that the current March Crazy Format was flawed, adding that the expansion would take the NCAA in the right direction by providing more opportunities for the teams they deserve.
“If you have 64 or 68 teams in your game, you’re going to have a bunch of teams, which is probably the best 68 or 70 teams most people think of in the country, and those teams won’t play,” Baker said at the time.
“The focus from 68 to 72 or 76 is basically giving some schools that are probably one of the 72, 76, 68, 64 best teams in the country and entered the game.”
The NCAA Championship expanded from 64 teams to 68 teams in 2011. The change introduced the first four rounds, a series of tournaments where four lowest seeds average teams and four lowest seeds competed for the championship in the Standard 64 team.
