The NCAA is in final steps to expand both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams, ESPN reported Tuesday.
INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA is moving toward the biggest expansion of March Madness in more than a decade, with both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments set to grow from 68 to 76 teams as soon as next season, ESPN reported Tuesday.
Sources said the NCAA has initiated the final steps to formalize the expansion, with mid-May as the target for an official announcement. The 76-team tournaments would begin in the 2026-27 season.
The men’s tournament will include eight additional at-large bids under the new structure. The current First Four — four play-in games held in Dayton, Ohio — will be dramatically overhauled into a 24-team opening round featuring 12 games spread across two venues.
According to ESPN, the Tuesday and Wednesday that open tournament week will now feature 24 of the 76 men’s teams, including eight teams that would have qualified for the traditional 64-team bracket squaring off against the eight new at-large additions.
The remaining 52 teams will automatically earn spots in the main tournament bracket.
Media contracts are reportedly in final talks. Once those are signed, various NCAA committees will vote on approval, ESPN reported.
The move ends years of deliberation, driven in part by pressure from major conference commissioners who argued that high-caliber programs were being left out of the field. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was among the most vocal advocates when the NCAA was considering expansion in 2024, arguing that automatic qualifiers for smaller leagues were keeping out more competitive programs in larger conferences.
The last time the men’s tournament expanded was in 2011, when the field grew from 65 to 68 teams and the First Four format was introduced. The women’s tournament expanded from 64 to 68 teams in 2022.