The NCAA is rumored to be discussing an expansion to March Madness, according to Ross Dellenger of On3, and an announcement may come sooner rather than later.
NCAA President Charlie Baker announced in August that the tournament will not expand for the 2025-26 season, but there have been discussions about expanding the field as early as 2027.
The current March Madness tournament looks like this: 68 teams, eight of which compete in a “First Four” tournament to earn their way into the 64-team field. These games consist of the four lowest automatically qualified teams, as well as the four lowest-ranked “at-large” teams.
Dellenger said the potential expansion would increase the total number of teams to 76. Additionally, opposed to the traditional four-game play-in, the new model would expand to 12 games. Eight new teams, as well as eight lower-seeded at-large teams, who previously clinched a ticket and avoided the “First Four,” will now have to fight in an expanded play-in tournament.
The expansion is likely motivated by an increase in revenue for the NCAA, but it also creates an opportunity for an unlikely group.
Mid-major schools — programs outside of the Power 4 conferences — will now have more opportunities to play for the national championship, as the expansion of the tournament allows for more “bubble” teams, which are oftentimes mid-majors themselves.
In 2024, Indiana State, led by star big man Robbie Avila, was tearing it up in the Atlantic 10. The Sycamores came up just short of getting a tournament bid, but in the near future, that outcome will be very different.
However, with NIL running rampant throughout the Power 4 conferences, mid-major programs are having a tough time keeping up, possibly making the expansion itself irrelevant.
This past March, we saw a chalk final four, with all four number 1 seeds advancing to the semifinal, for only the second time in tournament history, and the first time since 2008.
Many are left wondering if NIL is at play.
Top programs simply have more money to spend on their athletes and can offer larger contracts that mid-majors cannot match.
NIL has also led to an explosion of players entering the transfer portal. Elite talents at mid-major programs are lured to Power 4 schools for financial reasons.
Former Memphis guard PJ Haggerty was a three-star recruit coming out of high school and committed to play for TCU. After transferring to Tulsa and then eventually Memphis, where last season he averaged over 21 points a game and helped the Tigers earn a five seed in the NCAA tournament, he decided to transfer once again to Kansas State.
Haggerty is one of many mid-major talents who have made the recent jump over to Power 4 conferences following the conclusion of the 2024-25 season. The top three talents in the transfer portal this offseason, UAB forward Yazel Landeburg, New Mexico guard Donovan Dent and Drake guard Bennet Stirz, were all highly sought after and ended up at Michigan, UCLA, and Iowa, respectively.
A product of the transfer portal played an important role for the 2025 national champion Florida Gators. Star point guard Walter Clayton Jr., who transferred from Iona in 2023, helped lead the team to their first championship in 18 years and received the NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player award for his contributions.
But if mid-major schools keep losing their top talents, what chance do they have to compete at the national level?
Some programs, like UAB, led by head coach Andy Kennedy, are marketing themselves differently.
Kennedy acknowledges that times have changed, and now sells recruits on the idea that their experience at UAB will be a stepping stone in their college career, which will create opportunities to move to a bigger program through the transfer portal.
Unless mid-major schools begin to change how they recruit and operate, they are at risk of drowning to the point where they cannot resurface. And, with budgets for the big schools likely to increase, they are in a predicament: adjust or die.