Seth Davis expects apologies from critics of NCAA Tournament expansion

If and when the NCAA men’s basketball tournament expands beyond 68 teams, Seth Davis knows critics of the idea will quickly learn to love it.

Davis joined the Awful Announcing Podcast this week to discuss founding Hoops HQ, his media career, the college basketball season, and of course, the NCAA Tournament which tips off next week.

During the interview, Davis was asked about tournament expansion, which appears to have more critics than supporters, counting Jon Rothstein among them. But according to Davis, the tournament should expand and fans will be better off for it.

“It absolutely should expand,” Davis said. “They’ve added four teams in 40 years. That is a six percent growth. Nobody with a straight face can make the argument that college basketball has only grown by six percent over the last 40 years. I understand all of the arguments against it…it’s the same argument that’s been made against expansion every single time it’s ever been done in any sport. I am old enough to remember when baseball added the Wild Card and Bob Costas was losing his mind.”

Seth Davis pushed back on the notion that expanding the tournament is just a money grab, noting that if the NCAA knew they would make more money through expansion, they would have already expanded by now. As Davis explains, every team gets the same nominal share for their conference, for every tournament game played. More teams in the tournament will make those units smaller, which means the NCAA has to use its revenue sources to increase the pool of available money before letting more schools in.

“It’s far from a slam dunk,” Davis noted of expansion. But for all its critics, Seth Davis is confident everyone will appreciate a bigger NCAA Tournament if and when it expands.

“It’s gonna juice up Tuesday and Wednesday,” Davis said. “I love the First Four, but what’s everyone gonna say next Tuesday? ‘Oh, this isn’t the real tournament, the real tournament starts on Thursday.’ Imagine instead of two games each day, you have six…If and when they expand, Tuesday is going to have six games, Wednesday is going to have six games, Thursday and Friday are still gonna have 16. Everyone’s going to agree that it’s awesome and millions of people are gonna go on Twitter, if it’s still around, hopefully it’s not, and apologize to me personally and profusely and recognize that I was right and everyone else was wrong.”

Listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast beginning Friday, March 14 which features Seth Davis talking about Hoops HQ, Charles Barkley, growing up around politics, Caitlin Clark, March Madness and more. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.