Georgia’s Mike White backs NCAA basketball tournament expansion to 76 teams

The NCAA announced Thursday its Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournament fields will increase from 68 to 76 teams starting next season.

Count Georgia men’s basketball coach Mike White as a supporter of the move. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the expansion makes sense because it brings the tournament in line with other sports.

“I don’t think you expand just to expand … ,” White said. “Adding eight teams brings men’s basketball in line with other sports with bracketed championships.

“Last year, 68 of 365 basketball teams played in the NCAA Tournament. That’s just under 19%. If the number goes to 76, the percentage is still under 21% (20.8%).”

To White’s point, other men’s scholarship sports have had a higher percentage of teams qualify for their respective bracketed championships:

• Baseball: 64 of 308 (20.8%)

• Golf: 81 of 312 (26.0%)

• Soccer: 48 of 213 (22.5%)

• Tennis: 64 of 237 (27.0%)

• Hockey: 16 of 62 (25.8%)

Georgia proved it could make the NCAA men’s tournament in a 68-team field the past two seasons under White’s direction, and the Bulldogs coach made the case in his interview with the AJC that more teams were worthy.

“The last two years, we’ve felt like we were comfortably in the tournament on Selection Sunday,” White said. “That said, in studying what people considered the ‘bubble,’ I have thought there were teams both years that had strong arguments and were left out of the field.”

The move to 76 teams was approved by the Division I Board of Governors and formally adopted, and the NCAA will distribute an additional $131 million in revenue to participating schools over the remaining six years on the television contract, per an NCAA news release.

The NCAA also announced that as part of the new agreements, it will open up previously restricted products for the NCAA Corporate Champions and Partners Program. Those products will include beer, wine, hard seltzer and spirits, and allow advertising opportunities during the coverage of the tournaments. Per the report, the value of the rights agreement will increase by $50 million yearly — on average — the next six years.

The NCAA announced how the new tournament bracket will carry forward a large degree of familiarity, but there will be some changes on the front end.

“As has been the case since 2011, the men’s championship begins on the Tuesday after Selection Sunday, meaning the 2027 tournament will begin March 16,” per the release.

“However, instead of two games Tuesday and Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, there will be three games each day in Dayton and three games each of the two days in a second city, as yet unnamed.