Writing for the Wall Street Journal Online, Darren Everson calls expanding the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams…
the biggest no-brainer in sports right now. Far bigger, even, than all the talk of imposing a playoff on college football.
His reasoning? The expanded tournament would give more “quality” teams the chance to show their stuff, expand the presence of mid-majors, and generate enough game action that some portion of the tournament might be made available on cable — thereby allowing more games to be seen in their entirety.
If those arguments were shots, all three would be hitting the rim with a resounding “clank.” Let’s take them in order:
Expanding the tournament is an opportunity for more quality teams to get exposure
This one is the easiest to refute — Everson was nice enough to put the evidence right in his article. He says expanding the tournament would be an opportunity for more quality teams to prove themselves. Then he lists the teams that might have had that opportunity last season. On his list:
- Baylor (20-14, 5-11 Big 12)
- Georgetown (16-14, 7-11 Big East)
- Kentucky (20-13, 8-8 SEC)
- Miami (18-12, 7-9 ACC)
- Nebraska (18-12, 8-8 Big 12)
- Notre Dame (18-14, 8-10 Big East)
- Virginia Tech (18-14, 7-9 ACC)
- Washignton State (17-15, 8-10 Pac 10)
So Everson’s definition of “quality” includes teams that couldn’t even muster a winning record in their own divisions. And he thinks they should be given an opportunity to “prove themselves” — which makes me wonder what the regular season and conference tournaments were for.
Expanding the tournament would mean more bids for mid-majors
Maybe. At least initially. But here’s the problem… it’s tough enough for the good mid-majors to schedule games against the big boys right now. What happens when the big conference als0-rans don’t need to build up their rankings by playing the Butlers and Sienas and Western Kentuckys of the world in order to make the tournament?
Those games stop getting scheduled.
The big conference schools will go back to loading up on cupcakes in the non-conference portion of the schedule, because their league schedules will be enough to get them into the Big Dance. And suddenly, the change intended to help the little guys winds up hurting them.
Expanding the tournament would mean more games could be televised in their entirety — possibly on cable
OK — so what he’s suggesting here is that people willing to pay for a premium service should be able to see more games. Why, that’s just crazy enough to work.
Wait. It does work. In fact, it’s been working since 2002, when DirecTV first rolled out the “Mega March Madness” package. And for those who don’t have DirecTV, there’s a broadband internet version called March Madness on Demand.
Want to improve the March Madness experience? Eliminate DirecTV’s exclusive on the Mega March Madness package and allow people with other cable providers to buy in.
So where does that leave us?
Right where we started. With the sport’s governing body looking for ways to increase revenue, and with a bunch of coaches hoping for an easier ticket to the Big Dance.
The next college basketball fan to tell me he or she likes the idea will be the first.
The WSJ Argument in Favor of 96-team NCAA Tournament originally appeared on About.com Basketball on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 23:01:39.
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