The magical cocktail for March Madness will now include eight more teams, eight more games and more of one other ingredient as well: beer. Maybe wine, too.
The NCAA is set for a long-expected expansion of its Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams each starting next season, with the association explaining in Thursday’s announcement that it made the financial aspect work by opening sponsorship opportunities to a long-restricted alcohol category.
“I would say that expansion would not have happened without that agreement,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball.
The new 76-team brackets will jam eight extra games — for a total of 12 involving 24 teams — into the front half of the first week of each tourney. It will turn the portion of the event that has been known as the First Four into a bigger affair; the “March Madness Opening Round” is what the NCAA has dubbed the expanded portion of the tournaments.
The 12 winners will move into the main 64-team bracket that will begin, as usual, on Thursday for the men and on Friday for the women. In all, there will now be 120 games across the two tournaments over seven days to set the table for the Sweet 16 and the second week of each national championship chase.