I’ve believed for awhile now that the NCAA tourney as it exists now will not be what it is in the future.
what I think changes is there will be no NCAA governing body and the universities completely break away from the NCAA. The bigger schools create their own tourney with a similar number of teams or possibly even smaller. They still invite some smaller conference schools but maybe not as much OR they keep it at 64 (68) and just give less of the pie to the smaller schools
The universities leave a lot of money on the table by splitting with smaller schools and the NCAA for the basketball tourney.
I think NIL, TV money and other factors cause the schools to essentially break away and place more of an emphasis on 4 major conferences that keep most of the pie. They have less of an emphasis on academics and it’s essentially similar to pro sports but still college.
The 4 leagues will all be bigger than their current form but they don’t have to be equal in number.
I suspect each league (ACC, B1G, SEC and PAC) adds teams but they don’t all get to 20. For instance I don’t think the PAC adds 8 teams to get to 20.
Football is still king but basketball narrows the gap by creating their own tourney and keeping more of the money. Football is only 4-5 months of the year and the schools/networks want to make money all through January-April and double up in November/December.
how do you guys think this plays out? I don’t think the current structure or anything similar to it is the future. Thoughts?
