The 2027 NCAA Tournament will officially expand to 76 teams following approval Thursday afternoon by the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Committees, the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees, the Division I Finance Committee, the Division I Board of Directors and the NCAA Board of Governors.
“Expanding the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships is the right decision for the student-athletes and programs that will now have access to the greatest events in college sports,” Board of Directors chair and Virginia Tech president Tim Sands said in an NCAA-issued press release Thursday. “As NCAA leaders, we are especially excited to provide additional, highly competitive games for fans who look forward to March Madness every year.”
As part of the bigger tournament, the expansion adds three times the number of Tuesday and Wednesday games to the men’s tournament.
Adding these bids brings the total of tournament-eligible teams in men’s basketball to 21%, the NCAA confirmed.
In confirming the decision Thursday, the NCAA said the deal allows it to “award more than $131 million in new revenue distributions to member schools participating in the basketball tournaments over the remaining six years of the NCAA’s broadcast agreements.”
To create that revenue, the NCAA said the rights agreement is set to increase by $50 million per year over the next six years and it will open “new, previously restricted product categories for the NCAA Corporate Champions and Partners Program, including beer, wine, spirits, and hard seltzer, and allows for expanded in-game advertising opportunities during the linear and streaming coverage of the tournaments.”
When the 2027 NCAA Tournament begins the Tuesday after Selection Sunday, a total of 12 games — three per day at two locations — are part of the newly approved bracket before the traditional tournament start day of Thursday.
Dayton, Ohio, remains one site for the men’s tournament with a second site to be determined.
With the increase in teams and games, those games will no longer be called the “First Four.”
The NCAA will shift to a label of Opening Round. The teams eligible to play in the Opening Round will be the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams and 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers.
First Four contests in the women’s tournament have been single games at on-campus sites.
The change marks the first expansion of the tournament since the field moved from 65 to 68 teams with the addition of the First Four games in 2011. The field had previously been 64 or 65 teams since 1985.
The NCAA said it will also continue to provide transportation and funding for lodging, meals and other incidentals for teams in the expanded format.
–Field Level Media
