There are only so many positive ways to spin the impending expansion of the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments from 68 to 76 teams and the College Football Playoff from 12 to 24 teams.
Money, greed and corruption have taken a baseball bat to the world of college sports.
Some of the changes over the last half-decade have been positive, such as athletes now being compensated for their likeness. Others have left collegiate athletics unrecognizable from the experience that millions grew to love.
Century-old rivalries were discarded for billion-dollar TV contracts. Players now announce that they are "re-signing" with their schools and whittle down any sense of a four-year commitment to their academic institution. If leagues, teams, coaches or athletes don't get what they want, all they have to do is create a lawsuit against the NCAA — or each other — and secure the correct judge to file an injunction.
This week's news is another step toward the eventual collapse of college sports. The NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments are both expanding from 68 to 76 teams, while all signs are pointing toward the College Football Playoff doubling from 12 to 24 teams.
At first glance, neither of these seems like that big of a problem. More football and basketball is good, right? Plus, several Northwestern teams that were right on the bubble in their respective sports — such as the mid-2010s and 2020 football teams, the Bill Carmody years or Veronica Burton's senior season Wildcats — would get a shot at the big stage.
However, the implications down the line are disastrous. College sports are special because every game matters, especially in football. One massive upset can derail a team's entire season for one school and springboard national attention for another. Fans brave the elements for a Rivalry Week game between Ohio State and Michigan because that matchup oftentimes decides which team will contend for a National Championship, regardless of how the first 11 games of the season went.
Expanding the College Football Playoff from four teams was necessary because the committee's biases often excluded deserving teams for the chance at glory. But the sport's execs have now gotten money-hungry, seeing that more football equals more TV revenue, more ticket sales and more profit from merchandise.
The result is that the regular season will be watered down and mean less, both to teams and fans. Take 2025 Notre Dame, for example, which lost to the only two CFP teams it faced and spent the remaining 10 games beating up on terrible opponents. Or perhaps Michigan, which went 9-4 and lost to its four Top 25 opponents by a combined 61 points. Both of those teams would've earned spots in the College Football Playoff under the proposed 24-team expansion.
College football is entering a dangerously unsustainable territory. Bowl games are increasingly diluted with all of the opt-outs and the out-of-control transfer portal. The Playoff, which already has its fair share of blowouts, is set to add undeserving teams that will undoubtedly add very little to the product. And now, the regular season is at risk of becoming meaningless if any big-name brand can ride a weak schedule to a 9-4 record and reach the postseason.
The New Year's Six bowl games used to be significant because they marked the end of the college football season. Instead, college football could now run into the final week of January, and the truth is that most fans lose interest by then. This year's matchup of Indiana vs. Miami was incredibly thrilling, but it took place on Jan. 19. Half of the sport's season ended on Nov. 28, nearly two months prior.
College basketball is also at risk of being watered down. Except this time, instead of 9-4 football teams making the Playoff, it's an Auburn team that barely broke .500 participating in March Madness. Proponents say that the expansion will allow for more deserving mid-majors to reach the NCAA Tournament, but everyone with a brain can tell you that the committee is not going to give Belmont an at-large bid over Indiana.
March Madness doesn't attract millions of viewers every year because the best basketball teams are competing for a championship; fans watch the NCAA Tournament because of the underdogs, the upsets and the chaos. Small schools are now bound to be bumped down a line on the bracket and forced to play an extra game two days before the Round of 64. Teams will be more fatigued, fewer upsets will occur and more mediocre high-majors will get blown out in the opening round.
All of this will undoubtedly come back to bite the NCAA and every wealthy investor that signed off on these changes. As football fans become less interested in a regular season that doesn't mean as much and a postseason that lasts too long and overlaps with the NFL, and as basketball fans and casual viewers learn that the magical upsets of March Madness no longer occur enough to follow along, the pockets of TV and streaming execs will start to hurt. That'll cause school payouts to be smaller, and universities will question why they're not getting a return on their million-dollar roster investments.
Years from now, some high-ranking NCAA executive will sit in their penthouse and wonder where it all went wrong. They'll be stumped at how a bunch of white-collar lawyers managed to ruin one of America's greatest collective experiences, and there'll be no one else left to blame, except themselves.