NCAA Basketball Committees Vote to Expand Tournaments to 76 Teams in 2027: Here Are the Next Steps

A new era of college basketball has begun—kicking and screaming.

The NCAA tournaments will expand to 76 teams in 2027, with the men’s and women’s basketball committees voting unanimously to expand the tournaments, per CBS Sports. The proposal now heads to further committee votes, as well as the Division I cabinet on May 22 and the NCAA’s Board of Governors after that.

The development follows years of speculation, and marks the first addition of teams to the men’s tournament since 2011 and the women’s tournament since 2022.

Instead of eight teams playing four games on the first two days of the tournaments, 24 teams will now play 12 games. Those games will be split between Dayton, Ohio—the traditional home of the old First Four—and a location outside of the Eastern Time Zone to be determined.

In March, Sports Illustrated’s Kevin Sweeney laid out what a 76-team version of the 2026 men’s basketball tournament would have looked like.

The men’s tournament has not grown this much year-over-year since 1985, when it jumped from 53 teams to 64 teams, where it held steady until the addition of a play-in game in 2001. The women’s tournament, long a second-class affair in the NCAA’s eyes, was a 48-team affair as recently as 1993 before going to 64 teams in 1994.

Though March Madness is a legendarily recession-proof television event, the NCAA may have a significant sales job ahead of it to skeptical fans and observers. The symmetry of the 64-team bracket has been crucial to the NCAA tournament’s enduring appeal over the last four decades, making it an easy in to college basketball (and sports at large) for casual fans and non-fans. Whether fans are willing to wait out 12 games to fill out their brackets, and whether the finances justify the tournaments’ bloat, will be storylines to watch next March.

More College Basketball From Sports Illustrated

Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s College YouTube channel.

Add us as a preferred source on Google