The NCAA Tournament is one of the biggest sporting events each year, along with the Super Bowl, Masters, College Football Playoffs, Kentucky Derby, and so much more.
According to NCAA President Charlie Baker, the tournament could be changed in the future, and expanding it is a goal.
The tournament expanded from 64 teams to 68 in 2011 with the addition of the last four in and is likely to have around 72 or 76 teams in the future.
Baker was asked about the timeline of the expansion, and he is looking for it to be much sooner rather than later. “That would be the goal, to try and do this for next year,” according to David Rumsey on Twitter.
NCAA president Charlie Baker said one of his top priorities here at the Big 12 spring meetings was to discuss expanding March Madness, which could come in 2026.
“That would be the goal, to try and do this for next year. … We’ve been talking about 72 and 76.”
— David Rumsey (@_DavidRumsey) May 29, 2025
Baker continued and explained the reasoning behind the potential expansion.
“If you have a tournament that’s got 68 teams in it, you’re going to have a bunch of teams that are probably among what most people would consider being the best 68 or 70 teams in the country that aren’t going to make the tournament, period, because you get a whole bunch of people who win their conference tournaments who aren’t in that group,” Baker said. “So, the point behind going from 68 to 72 or 76 is to basically give some of those schools that probably were among the best teams in the country a way into the tournament.”
There have been many reports, including from Pete Thamel, that this could happen very quickly.
Whether you agree with the expansion of the NCAA Tournament or not, it sounds likely that this is its future direction.