NCAA Basketball Expands Its Wallet

by Jeremiah Tittle

While all the discussion and opinion and argumentation and analysis of what expansion would do to or for or against the NCAA Tournament spiraled out of control, the reality was something altogether anticlimactic.

In a nutshell, the NCAA opted out of the last few years of its previous contract with CBS only to net an additional 4.8 billion dollars over the course of a 14 year deal – adding revenue of more than 2oo million per season – with both CBS and Turner in which the television host of the Final Four and National Championship will toggle back and forth following the 2015 season.

As if the TV networks agreeing to share wasn’t strange enough, the only expansion in terms of actual games played resulted in the addition of 3 play-in games on the Tuesday before the real bracketology starts. Despite the approval of the NABC to move forward with the much hyped 96-team bracket, the NCAA decided to take the money and minimize expansion to merely 4 play-in games resulting in a 68 team tournament.

Whether a team must win 6 games or 9 games straight, a playoff is the only true way to determine a champion. If only the BCS was taking notes when March Madness dwarfed the appeal and satisfaction of college football’s finale.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org.