NCAA Tournament Expansion for 2026 to Be Decided in 'Coming Months,' CBB Exec Says

NCAA leadership isn't yet sure what men's and women's March Madness will look like going forward.

Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's Senior Vice President of Basketball, told CBS Sports' Matt Norlander that a decision on NCAA Tournament expansion could happen in the "coming months."

Norlander reported last June that DI conference commissioners had been shown models that could expand the NCAA Tournament to 72 or 76 teams. Seven months later, Gavitt said the decision to expand is anything but finalized.

"The most important thing to get across: this is definitely not a fait accompli," Gavitt told Norlander. "The recommendation to not expand the tournaments is absolutely a potential outcome here in the short-term."

The future outlook of the NCAA Tournament will depend on factors including the antitrust settlement to House vs. NCAA, which, if approved will pave the way to allowing schools to directly pay athletes.

The settlement, which was granted preliminary approval in May, will face a final hearing on April 7, the same day as the men's basketball national championship game.

If the settlement is approved, the NCAA could decide to wait and evaluate the new outlook of the college sports landscape before making a decision about how many teams should fit into future tournaments, Gavitt noted.

"I do think that there will be an opportunity to make a decision about '26 sometime in the coming months, but if that decision is not to move forward with expansion, I don't know that that is going to resolve the issue over the next five-to-eight years either," Gavitt said.

Gavitt continued: "Could be that the smartest thing to do is to wait and see whether or not the House settlement happens and is approved by the judge on April 7, what the ramifications of that going forward are, and whether this should be a topic that is considered a year or two from now, more so than it is right now."

The revenue sharing model proposed by the NCAA suggests capping payments to students at some percentage of each school's annual athletic revenue.

That means maximizing payouts from revenue sharing agreements will be more important to programs than ever going forward. One key source of revenue during March Madness comes via "performance units," which is what the NCAA calls revenue from media rights deals paid to each men's and women's team for each NCAA Tournament game played.

With expansion, Gavitt said, these performance unit funds "would have to have their budgets increased as well, or there's dilution of the value of the value of those units over time."

"That is a very real factor in this consideration, is the finances around that," Gavitt concluded.

The 2025 NCAA Tournament will feature 68 teams when it tips off in March. Selection Sunday takes place on Sunday, March 16.