Update: NCAA March Madness Expansion...highly likely

Even though the NCAA has denied they are expanding the Men's 2011 NCAA basketball tournament, NCAA president Greg Shaheen has said that the organization is currently "investigat[ing] the possibility of expanding the tournament" to 65, 68, or 96 teams."

So what about the NIT, taker of 32 teams just outside the NCAA tournament's bubble?  Apparently, the NCAA's deal with the NIT expires after this season, and the teams sent to that tournament could become a part of the now-expanded NCAA tournament in 2011.

Reports have coaches in support of the move.  Illinois head coach Bruce Weber told a Chicago news site,

"Selfishly I think as a coaching profession, there's so much pressure on you to get into the tournament, if you don't get in, you're a failure.  So, I think it would help keep jobs, it would maybe stabilize some programs, so I am definitely for it.  I think most of our coaching profession is."

Fair enough coach, but what happens when getting into the tournament is no longer a mark for coaches to meet?  Would fans and universities (presidents and athletic directors) create new benchmarks, like say, progressing to the round of 64?  Seems like a specious argument until you consider that even if 96 teams make the NCAA tournament, that means there are 251 teams that won't (a total of 347 Div 1 NCAA basketball schools).  From the current system where just 18% of NCAA teams make the tournament, the potential of a 96-team tournament would bump that percentage to almost 28%.  Wouldn't future coaches contracts take that into account?

Bruce Weber would have trouble wearing this jacket at the DMV 

if he got fired from his job at Illinois.

"Sitting at 2-5, I'm all for it," Texas Tech coach Pat Knight quipped yesterday.  But besides job preservation, coaches are realizing the economic impacts for their organization.  As Knight continued,

"From a money standpoint, I think it'd be good because it's not like people are going to not watch those early round games just because they extended it.  I'm sure they're going to be able to get TV contracts."

According to ESPN Dallas-Ft. Worth, Kansas coach Bill Self also recognizes that TV is a huge element of expansion:

"Whatever it is, if it's 96 there's going to be 97, 98, 99 that feel like they got left out...I think television will dictate so much of it.  I think it's worth discussing, but I haven't seen anyone's formula that would be the right formula.  Football can't figure it out and they deal with less teams."

While it's highly unlikely that Bill Self and Kansas will have to worry about being the 99th team on the outside of the 2011 NCAA Tournament, I find it interesting that Knight and Self acknowledge that television controls the sport.  It's no different than most other sports in the States or the world over, for that matter, but it is interesting that fans have no say whatsoever in sports and TV scheduling.  Consider the fact that college football, during the regular season, is broadcast five or six nights a week on ESPN.

Ranked number 1 in February 2010, 

ranked number 99 in February 2011?  Not likely.

As for the impending NCAA TV deal, currently Sports Business Daily has CBS partnering with Turner Sports (TNT/TBS) for a deal that will show the opening rounds on cable and eventually make the move to CBS for the later rounds.

Is the NCAA ready for these guys?

Long a player in the professional basketball ranks, is TBS/TNT a good fit for the NCAA tournament?  Furthermore, from an attendance standpoint, will an expanded tournament be able to fill the large arenas that typically house the opening rounds?  These questions are just a few that surround an issue I don't think is going away any time soon.

For your viewing pleasure, here's the 2009 "One Shining Moment," the best annually-occuring montage in all of sports.  And, of course, the only sports montage featuring the incomparable Luther Vandross.  The 2011 version?  Will probably need a new title..."One Shining Slightly Longer Period of Time?"

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As a short aside, one country that had placed regulations on TV scheduling for sports until recently was Germany.  Until 2006, in the nation's top soccer division, the Bundesliga, 7 games would be played at 3.30 pm on Saturday and 2 games would be played on Sunday at 5 pm.  And that was it.  Until Rupert Murdoch's Sky broadcasting, in 2006, moved one of the Saturday games to 6.30 pm and another game to Friday evening at 8.30 pm.

Even with a sport so staunchly defended in Germany as soccer, nothing is impenetrable to the mighty force of television.  Which means fans won't have a say here either - whether it's NCAA football, basketball, or any other sporting contest.