If you’ve cut the cord and rely on streaming services to catch March Madness, then next year, you might be in for a treat. The NCAA is seriously considering adding extra teams to the Men’s Basketball Tournament as soon as next year. As it stands, 68 schools vie for glory each March, but NCAA President Charlie Baker has been chatting with Paramount Global’s CBS Sports (which powers Paramount+) and Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports (carried on Max) about bumping the field to either 72 or even 76 teams.
At last week’s Big 12 spring meetings, Front Office Sports reported that Baker said the NCAA has had “good conversations” with both partners and wants this to happen as soon as possible.
“That would be the goal—to try and do this for next year, which is why the window to actually negotiate it will probably end sometime early summer,” he said.
According to Baker, the tournament’s expansion would ultimately be 72 or 76 teams and not more. These are the two options the basketball committee has been evaluating, aiming to ensure that deserving teams who are often left out due to the constraints of an automatic-bid system get a chance to compete. If the tournament expands, the current 31 automatic qualifiers aren’t expected to change, per Baker.
“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 be 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.
Will Subscription Costs Creep Higher?
More teams mean more games, and for cord cutters, that translates into more streaming hours on Paramount+ and Max. Currently, the “First Four” play-in games already consume a significant portion of the first Tuesday and Wednesday during Opening Week, forcing CBS and TNT to compete for airtime. If the field expands, you could see two or three additional matchups squeezed into that same timeframe.
Here’s where things get interesting and a little uncertain: CBS and TNT Sports aren’t contractually required to pay the NCAA more just because there are extra games, according to Puck’s The Varsity newsletter. However, the report notes that the NCAA could sweeten the pot by restructuring sponsorship packages to entice its partners to pay more for the rights.
Similarly, one unnamed media executive FOS spoke to said they believe the networks “will offer them zero—or a minus amount. They’re expanding the earliest round for no apparent reason other than the powers that be think it’s worth more.”
As the NCAA continues to negotiate with its partners on expanding the tournament, and working out a more lucrative deal for the new games. What could that mean for cord cutters?
With limited space on the linear networks, working out a new deal that creates premium ad inventories for streaming audiences and promoting exclusivity could be the next evolution. For the previous two March Madness tournaments, Max subscribers with the ad-supported plan could stream games for no additional charge, but that’s changing in 2026. Now, to stream games and other TNT Sports coverage, including college football, MLB, NASCAR, and the NBA, subscribers must have a premium tier, starting at $16.99 per month.
As the tournament expands and the fragmentation of sports continues, bundling, higher tiers, or price increases aren’t out of the question. We could one day see a “March Madness Boost” tier or add-on that includes all early-round games without ads, or a limited-time sports add-on to cover any network-exclusive matchups. Outside of typical potential price bumps, streamers could introduce short-term “all-access” passes that are pricier than their standard subscriptions.
The 96-Team Tournament
Back in 2010, CBS Sports opted out of its contract with the NCAA and signed a new agreement in partnership with TNT Sports to air March Madness. That agreement is scheduled to expire in 2032, and the current terms allow the Final Four and championship games to alternate each year between CBS (odd-numbered years) and TBS (even-numbered years).
When the partnership began, the NCAA tournament expanded from 64 teams to its current First Four model of 68 teams. During the 2010 negotiation period, former ESPN President John Skipper met with NCAA officials during the 2010 Final Four in Indianapolis and discussed bringing March Madness to the network.
Before the TNT Sports partnership with CBS, many regional games during the tournament weren’t being aired, and on an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Skipper mentioned that he offered the NCAA a “compelling proposition” to use the ESPN family of networks and expand the tournament’s coverage. Skipper believed ESPN could offer a superior tournament experience with more teams and broader coverage, and they were prepared to pay the most for the rights.
At the time, Skipper wanted the NCAA to expand the tournament from 64 to 96 teams, and ESPN would use its networks and resources to air every single game. During those negotiations, Skipper mentioned that ESPN’s networks were the home of college basketball, airing over 1,500 regular-season games. He noted that the NCAA had loyalty to CBS, which has aired March Madness since 1982, and the organization didn’t want ESPN to “have everything.” He also questioned why the NCAA chose to only expand from 64 to 68 at the time.
Now, with talks of the tournament expanding 15 years later, Baker said that 76 teams is the maximum that they are currently exploring. Those additional eight teams would come from the pool of teams that are not chosen for the Big Dance in March and accept other tournament invitations: the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), College Basketball Invitational (CBI), and the upstart College Basketball Crown (CBC), which combine for 64 teams.
ESPN holds the rights for the NIT and the CBI, along with FloSports, and FOX Sports airs the CBC, which it co-owns with Anschutz Entertainment Group. Some schools decline offers to these tournaments as they don’t view them as prestigious as March Madness. Notably, of the three tournaments, the NIT is the only one operated by the NCAA, and it is a year older than the D1 tournament. There could come a time when the NCAA and its media partners choose to expand to 96 teams, which would greatly impact the competing postseason tournaments.
If the tournament does expand to 96 teams, one could argue that the potential for even more upsets would make for a more exciting watch, while others could view it as diluting the tournament’s prestige. March Madness viewership continuously increases, making it a great revenue opportunity for networks.
72 or 76 may be the number for now, but by 2032, brackets could be busted like never before.
Credit: Front Office Sports, Puck News