KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said Tuesday that he is in favor of expanding the NCAA Tournament and the College Football Playoff, though he remains cautious about exactly how two of college sports’ premier events will look in the future.<\/p>\n
NCAA president Charlie Baker recently said that he supported the expansion of March Madness, which has included 68 teams since the 2011 edition. And while different numbers have been floated over the years, it appears that 72 or 76 teams with more \u201cplay-in\u201d games could be on deck as soon as the 2027 tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s an NCAA decision,\u201d Yormark said at Big 12’s annual women’s basketball media day, \u201cbut from a conference perspective, we’re in favor of modest expansion. Let’s use 76 as a working number \u2014 might not be the number, but a working number. But the right economics have to come with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While expansion may not create much much additional revenue for conferences on the front end, since broadcast partners CBS and TNT have deals in place that run through the 2032 tournament, the additional teams would likely come from power leagues, and that could drive viewership and TV ratings for one of the NCAA’s signature events.<\/p>\n
Big Ten counterpart Tony Petitti recently said coaches and athletic directors in his league have been \u201csupportive\u201d of expansion. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think there’s some momentum,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cWe’ll see where it lands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Big 12 commissioner also believes there is momentum for an expanded football playoff, which already has grown from four teams to 12 this past season. Yormark favors moving to 16 teams in a \u201c5+11\u201d model that would provide five automatic bids for the winners of the highest-ranked conferences and 11 at-large bids chosen by a committee. <\/p>\n
Other leagues have floated other formats, though, and a subset of stakeholders believe 12 is already the right number.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve always said you have to earn it on the field. Nothing should be predetermined come the beginning of the season,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cIf there was a conversation about a format that gave the power conferences the same number of (automatic qualifiers), I’d be all ears. I want to give our schools a chance each and every year to compete at the highest levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other news, Yormark said the Big 12 has no interest in private equity investment; the Big Ten recently backed off plans \u2014 for now \u2014 that would have called for a $2 billion investment in exchange for a 10% stake in its league-wide media rights.<\/p>\n
The Big 12 had previously considered an investment from CVC Capital Partners to provide schools long-term financial security.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s incumbent upon all commissioners to look at different options that they can bring back to their boards. Some of those options make sense, some don’t,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cWe like where we are right now. That doesn’t mean we’re not exploring different options, but private equity for us doesn’t work. We’re bullish on our future. We’re not giving a stake to anyone. \u201d<\/p>\n
Yormark also said the Big 12 supports the SCORE Act, a bill introduced in July that would preempt state laws regarding name, image and likeness payments that have been allowed since July 2021. Different states have different NIL rules, creating a \u201cwild west\u201d in college sports in which teams and conferences are forced to operate under different sets of rules.<\/p>\n
The legislation also calls for schools to provide medical insurance to athletes after they leave school, among other things.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt its core, the SCORE Act is about protecting the future of college sports for every athlete, every school and every college fan. It creates a national NIL standard,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cIt protects a student-athlete’s rights to control their own name, image and likeness with a fair and transparent system. It expands scholarships, medical coverage, mental health resources and academic support. And it ensures student-athletes remain students, not employees.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said Tuesday that he is in favor of expanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,1976,398,400,401,99,9815],"class_list":["post-241647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}