Should It Stay or Should It Grow? NCAA Tournament Expansion

2010-04-02T01:13:00.014-05:00

Welcome to my small fist shaking at the NCAA for messing with a good thing. I'll be compiling information, pro & cons, for tournament expansion. Your comments are also valued.

A quick hodgepodge of thoughts, thrown together in the midst of the rest of my life:

The first Thursday and Friday of the tournament are two of my favorite days of the year. Really. My husband takes off work. The kids ask questions at their own risk. I'm planning on retreating to a hotel room next year. I can justify two days of Mom's March Madness, plus the rest of the tourney, but adding two more full days? Oy. Not sure if my family & friends would put up with me.

If they do expand, they would have to include the conference regular season champions and conference tournament champions. That would be a good thing.

Do the current first and second round venues make money now? There are an awful lot of empty seats in those big ol' places, but perhaps this is the NCAA's version of an economic stimulus plan?

Checkout the sidebar for twitter updates and news articles about the expansion.

Disclaimer: My website 64mascots.com is based on the 64 teams of March Madness (not having 65 is another fist shake), so it does color my opinion a bit. (Yes, I bought 96mascots.com just in case.) However, that is not my only reason for resisting the idea of an expansion.

Admittedly, protesting is an exercise in futility. The tourney has expanded about 10 times in it's 70 year history. The 64 team format was the longest lasting, from 1985-2000. 65th team added in 2001. There's no reason to think it won't happen again. (How tiny will the font be on that ginormous bracket page? )

Finally, the NCAA powers that be answer to whom?

Leave your take, for or against, tournament expansion on this page.

Don't Expand the Tournament?

Should It Stay or Should It Grow? NCAA Tournament Expansion