91直播

The NCAA is working toward expansion of the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams for next season, with hopes of finalizing a plan next month.

ESPN reported on Tuesday that the NCAA was initiating the final steps of expansion, but multiple people involved in expansion talks told The Athletic on Tuesday that there are still several key steps remaining to get a deal done.

Both the men’s and women’s basketball committees have yet to be presented with a full expansion plan for approval.

The framework, though, has come together, and the number being targeted is 76. Eight more at-large teams would be added to the field, and the First Four opening round, currently held in Dayton, Ohio, would be expected to grow from four games to 12, with an additional host site added.

Which teams play in those opening-round games also still needs to be determined, but the current mix of the lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the final at-large selections is the preferred choice of television partners.

The power conferences started the push for a bigger field for the association’s crown jewel event and money maker more than a year ago. There really is no opposition to expansion among Division I membership, and NCAA president Charlie Baker has been a vocal advocate for it.

The only obstacles have been working out logistics and figuring out a way to pay for staging more games and transporting more teams around the country. The NCAA still has six years left on a television rights deal with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery that pays more than $900 million annually.

The networks are not on the hook to pay for more games, but the NCAA and its partners have been exploring ways to unlock more revenue through sponsorships and advertising sales.

Expansion would only be approved if additional costs can be covered without any loss of revenue that the NCAA distributes to the 32 Division I conferences.

This expansion would be the largest for the men’s tournament since 1985, when the field grew from 53 teams to 64.