Latest News on NCAA Tournament Expansion as President Charlie Baker Eyes Changes

NCAA president Charlie Baker and senior vice president of basketball operations Dan Gavitt told reporters on Thursday that conversations regarding potential expansion of the NCAA basketball tournament won't take place until after this year's men's and women's events.

"We're still talking to the various players in this one," Baker told reporters. "I said all along that I think there are some very good reasons to expand the tournament. So, I would like to see it expand."

"Their focus is on this year's tournaments," Gavitt added of the NCAA power brokers and conference leaders who are interested in expansion.

Most fans of the sport have argued that the tournament was basically a perfect sporting event when it was only 64 teams and will say that the First Four, which expanded the field to 68 teams, didn't improve the event in the slightest. It's hard to imagine that further expansion would meaningfully improve the event either.

But in 2023, the Division I transformation committee recommended that NCAA postseason championships include at least 25 percent of schools in sports with over 200 eligible schools (which would exclude FBS college football). The current 68-team field for the NCAA tournament is less than 20 percent of all eligible programs.

It's possible that other factors have actually kept the NCAA from expanding sooner.

As Chris Vannini and CJ Moore of The Athletic wrote, "Television money has stood in the way of expansion. The NCAA's rights deal with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery for the men's tournament pays the association more than $1 billion annually and runs through 2032, but the networks are under no obligation to increase the rights fee for a bigger tournament."

Per that report, the NCAA has held conversations with both companies to find sponsorships that would help offset the costs of holding additional games.