Written by Brian Marcrom
The NCAA has created an exciting postseason tournament for the sport of basketball. Each season, 64 teams earn a spot in the tournament to play for the national championship.
The NBA and NHL reward 16 teams each season with a postseason berth. The NFL advances 12 teams to its bracket. Only eight teams qualify for Major League Baseball’s postseason. The NCAA’s 64 seems a bit generous. However, it works well year after year due to the large number of schools who participate in college basketball.
Each season we watch the nationally ranked powerhouses advance into the later rounds of the tournament with the exception of one or two Cinderella teams joining them.
Is Northern Iowa a better team than Kansas? Were the 2008 New York Giants a better team than the undefeated New England Patriots? They were on the day of the Super Bowl. There is no perfect way to crown a champion. However, tournaments are the best way to determine the best team.
I believe smaller schools that win their conference tournament have a right to play with the powerhouses in the current tournament setup. A blend of 64 teams from various conferences has worked for years without any complaints. Why change? As a fan I must admit that watching an extra round of basketball games would be exciting. However, I feel that it is better for the sport of basketball not to change the current format.
Sports are filled with tradition. It is important to keep traditions and rules so that we can compare stats from 2010 with the stats of 2020. The same applies for the tournament.
I find it intriguing that 25 percent of 12-seeded teams defeat their 5-seeded opponent in the first round. I enjoy witnessing big upsets, but expanding the tournament will create an opportunity for too many of them to occur. We all love underdog stories. But be honest, sports fans. The reason first-round upsets occur is usually not because the smaller school is a better team. They developed a one-game plan and played with motivational energy.
Though a small school is unlikely of winning the championship, it still has earned a right to play in the tournament due to its success in the conference championship. For the sake of the sport, powerhouses such as Duke and Kentucky need to advance to later rounds to generate interest in the tournament.
Why lobby for the field to be expanded to 96 or 128 teams? It’s all about the money. The NCAA earns 90 percent of its profit from the basketball tournament each year. An extra round of games will bring more money to the organization. CBS brings in plenty of dough from the tournament as well. Television networks are drooling at the opportunity of broadcasting another round of tournament action.
After this season the NCAA will be allowed to negotiate with other networks for the rights to broadcast the tournament. ESPN has several stations within its network and can easily replace taped afternoon shows with live tournament games. The cable giant is broadcasting the college football championship in 2011 and would also love to steal March Madness and its advertisers from network television.
An expanded tournament is definitely a great financial move for the NCAA and television networks. Let’s not forget about coaches though. Coaches have job securities to maintain. Seton Hall fired its basketball coach last week because his team failed to qualify for the tournament. More teams on the bracket will keep more athletic directors content.
The current format of the tournament is a tradition that should remain. Expanding the tournament further into April will ruin the tournament’s nickname. More importantly, greed should not be the reason for changing a system that is not broken. The tournament seeds enough teams to make the postseason exciting without losing the focus of a championship pursuit.
