Fox cuts College Basketball Crown field in half for Year 2

While the NCAA Tournament mulls expansion, Fox’s College Basketball Crown is committed to becoming more exclusive in Year 2.

According to the network’s press release, the 2026 College Basketball Crown will feature half the number of teams as its inaugural tournament. The field will be cut from 16 teams to just eight.

For those unfamiliar, the College Basketball Crown is Fox’s attempt to slice off a piece of the college hoops postseason pie. The tournament invites schools that did not make the NCAA Tournament, primarily from the three major conferences for which Fox has media rights partnerships: the Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East.

In practice, the Crown has gutted college basketball’s other non-March Madness postseason tournament, the NIT. Last year, the NIT’s 32-team field featured just four power conference teams, one of which didn’t even finish above .500. Most power conference schools opted for the Crown. However, schools from the aforementioned Fox-affiliated conferences would likely not spurn their key television partner to participate in a competitor’s event if they were invited to both.

Fox’s viewership for the Crown held up relatively well compared to its NIT competition. The championship game averaged 822,000 viewers on Fox compared to 508,000 viewers on ESPN for the NIT championship. Across all games, Fox and FS1 averaged 260,000 viewers for the Crown while ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU averaged 212,000 viewers for the NIT.

Given the relative success of Fox’s first year airing the College Basketball Crown, it’s interesting they’d cut the field in half. Now, the top two non-NCAA Tournament teams from the Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East will receive automatic bids to the Crown, while a selection committee will pick two wild card teams to fill out the eight-team field.

One added benefit of a more exclusive field is that it guarantees more elite matchups. Fox is assured multiple games featuring two power conference teams in the first round, whereas that wasn’t a sure thing last year.

However, the smaller field may provide an opening for the NIT, which remains at 32 teams, to regain some of its audience. The larger NIT field can still offer a “March Madness” type of feel with upsets and Cinderella runs, while an eight-team competition might feel more like the Maui Invitational.

That’s a risk Fox seems willing to take to ensure some high-caliber matchups next April.