NCAA president Charlie Baker endorses tournament expansion

It continues to look as if the upcoming NCAA Tournament in March will be the final to sport a 68-team field.

At a recent event called “The Future of College Basketball,” NCAA president Charlie Baker reportedly endorsed expansion for March Madness. “One of the reasons I’m interested in expanding the tournament, although it comes with a lot of logistical complications and everything else, is, I do think there are teams that didn’t make the tournament that should have,” Baker said, per The Athletic. “And it bummed me out that they didn’t get in.”

An expanded format would likely see either 72 or 76 teams make the field, creating more “play-in” style games similar to the First Four.

Expansion wouldn’t necessarily generate all that much additional revenue. The NCAA’s broadcast partners at CBS and TNT are under no obligation to pay more for the increased inventory. And aside from that, the tournament’s play-in games are already some of the least-watched windows of the entire event, and also some of the least-desirable for advertisers.

However, expansion would hypothetically allow more power conference teams into the field each year. And power conference teams tend to rate better than Cinderellas, so the move could lead to larger viewership later in the tournament.

Recently, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti endorsed expansion, and also suggested the tournament move to a “straight-seeding” model in which play-in games are reserved for the lowest-ranked teams in the field, meaning power conference schools would likely avoid playing before the Round of 64.

That’s simply one idea. According to former Oregon State coach Craig Robinson, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, “there is no consensus.”

What does seem to be a consensus, at least among the sport’s power brokers, is expansion itself. The question is no longer if, but when and how.