NCAA expanding March Madness college basketball tournaments to 76 teams in 2027
FILE-Aday Mara #15 of the Michigan Wolverines and Tarris Reed Jr. #5 of the UConn Huskies take the tip off during the first half of a game in the National Championship of the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 06, 202
The NCAA is increasing the number of teams competing in the March basketball tournaments starting in 2027.
NCAA officials announced an expansion of its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams each beginning next season.
What’s the new format for the expanded NCAA basketball tournaments?
Dig deeper: The 76-team tournament brackets will feature eight additional games — for a total of 12 highlighted by 24 teams — into the front half of the first week of each tournament. This new format will also turn what’s currently known as the First Four into what will be called the March Madness Opening Round.
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Approximately 12 winners will transition into the main 64-team bracket that will start on Thursday for the men’s teams and Friday for the women’s teams. The Associated Press reported that there will be 120 games across the two tournaments over seven days, setting the tone for the Sweet 16s.
NCAA Tournament at-large selections
Big picture view: The number of at-large selections for the NCAA tournament will grow from 37 to 44, the Associated Press reported, citing ESPN. Most of the at-large bids are likely to be awarded to teams from power conferences that have already held many of the slots in the March tournament bracket.
At-large selections refer to bids to the NCAA tournament awarded by the selection committee to teams that lost their conference tournament, also known as automatic qualifiers.
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According to the Associated Press, the expansion of the men’s and women’s tournaments will be financed by roughly $300 million in extra funding from new sponsorship opportunities for beer, wine, spirits, and hard seltzer, including more advertising space on CBS, TNT, and other business partners whose $8.8 billion deal runs through 2032.
The NCAA told the AP that it will allocate over $131 million of the new revenue to schools that make the NCAA Tournament.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by The Associated Press. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.