NCAA president Charlie Baker revealed last week his preference to expand the NCAA Tournament from 68 teams, to either 72 or 76 teams. The reason, as any fan of college sports could easily guess in the year 2025, is to extract more revenue out of its television partners.
CBS and TNT Sports jointly broadcast the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and will do so through at least 2032. In total, the NCAA rakes in an average of $1.1 billion per year from men’s tournament rights, but adding games could create some incremental value for both CBS and TNT Sports.
The problem, however, is it’s unclear just how valuable these few extra games would actually be. Under a 72 or 76-team format, the inventory being added would amount to a few additional play-in games. Those contests are already the least-watched of any tournament window and are played on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the first round officially gets underway on Thursday. And crucially, with two play-in games played each day at around 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, there’s no clear television window to put additional play-in contests.
All told, expansion doesn’t seem like the surefire value-add that Baker and the NCAA might think it is. Per reports, CBS and TNT aren’t even required to pay an additional fee if the NCAA does decide to expand the tournament.
But that isn’t stopping one sports media reporter from suggesting he thinks the NCAA will strike a deal with its television partners about tournament expansion before next season. Speaking on his The Varsity podcast, Puck sports reporter John Ourand said he believes the two sides “will work out a deal,” and fans will see the first-ever 72 or 76-team NCAA Tournament this upcoming season.
“If I was a betting man, my bet would be that next year’s tournament will be expanded to 76, and that the NCAA and the TV networks will work out a deal,” Ourand said. “But I don’t expect anything to happen for a couple of months. These are the issues that they need to work through. First, any expansion would put more games on the opening two days of the tournament, the Tuesday and Wednesday, the so-called play-in games. These games aren’t going to create any new windows for the TV networks. And the fact is that the networks don’t place a lot of value on the added four college basketball games, or however many there are. In this era of cord-cutting, traditional media companies need to find value in these kinds of deals. And if they can’t see it, so be it, they’ll walk.
“Now on the NCAA’s side, they have an expectation that any expansion to the tournament will bring with it a healthy rise in their rights fee. But, and this is really important to note, neither CBS nor TNT Sports is contractually obligated to pay more if the tournament expands. But that doesn’t mean that a deal is far off. Their current deal runs through 2032, and I’ve seen this play out time and time again. Neither side wants to create friction for the next seven years. So look for the NCAA to sweeten its offer in other areas. For example, would CBS and TNT agree to pay a higher rights fee if the NCAA modifies some of the restrictions it has on how the networks sell corporate sponsorships around the tournament? That’s a possibility. Are there any other sweeteners that the NCAA could provide to convince the networks to play along?
“The bottom line is that everyone likes each other; TNT, CBS, the NCAA. And from what I hear, the negotiations seem to be humming along. I fully expect both sides to reach an agreement, I just don’t have a handle at what that agreement looks like yet.”
If Ourand is right, which he usually is, we might’ve already seen the last 68-team tournament. It seems like this deal will come down to what ancillary benefits the NCAA can scrounge up for CBS and TNT. Otherwise, there is little reason for either network to shell out more in rights fees when it doesn’t have to.
But given there are still seven years left on the current media rights deal, maintaining a healthy working relationship, according to Ourand, seems to be a high priority. That might mean paying a little extra in rights fees to stay in the NCAA’s good graces, and maybe get some sweeteners in return.