Why fans should be concerned about FOX's basketball tournament idea

If the news regarding FOX Sports negotiating with major basketball conferences about a 16-team postseason tournament is a trial balloon, here’s an idea:

Let’s pop it right now.

Leave aside that the tournament concept, reported by The Messenger‘s Seth Davis, could in time serve as the death knell for the NIT, which has existed since 1938. Leave aside that even with NIL money provided to participants, guaranteeing that top players from the middling teams would play would be a formidable challenge.

And even leave aside the fact that staging a late-March tournament with Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 leftovers has little to no viewing appeal. You are looking LIVE – a Sweet 16 field of middling majors! Winner gets the coolest participation trophy in Vegas!

As one longtime college hoops aficionado told On3 on Monday morning: “Ever wonder what the college hoops equivalent of the Independence Bowl would be?”

Ignore all that.

Here’s the real reason why all college basketball fans and stakeholders should be concerned: If the idea materializes, it’s another incremental step toward the real target on the horizon: the NCAA tournament. This could be a notable step on the slow march toward power conferences squeezing mid-major programs out of March Madness.

Basketball following power conference shift?

As the notion of power conferences breaking away from the NCAA in football is being bandied about, just imagine the same paradigm for college basketball. All power conference basketball teams in the sport’s championship tournament.

No mid-majors.

It would be a costly mistake. And this news, while not at pertaining to the NCAA tournament – whose rights belong to CBS Sports and Turner Sports through 2032 – is ominous.

“Ominous indeed,” one prominent college sports administrator told On3 on Monday.

If the natural extension of how market forces are shaping college sports is for the power conferences to join forces, stage their own championship basketball tournament and keep mid-major programs out of their playground, it would threaten the unique allure of the NCAA tournament.

To be clear, people would still watch. But one of the central ingredients in the NCAA tournament’s secret sauce is the early-round possibility of the mid-major upset. From grandmas to die hard hoopheads, fans want to see mid-majors shock the world early on and blue bloods take center stage in the Elite Eight and Final Four.

The NCAA tournament is near perfect

The NCAA tournament has retained a unique hold on the American public despite players leaving early for the pros and dizzying change to the broader sporting world and college basketball in particular.

One of the reasons: the wonderment, ease and fun surrounding filling out a bracket. It’s about falling in love with the College of Charleston because they play a slew of Division II transfers. It’s looking up where Winthrop is located. And it’s picking South Dakota State to advance solely because of their nickname – the Jackrabbits. 

Go ahead and mess with that structure and formula down the road, replacing those teams with .500 teams from major conferences. See if such a wide swath of people still cherish the event the same way they have for decades.

See if we’re still as willing to sit through the unrelenting repetition of AT&T’s Lily commercials.

The NCAA tournament is not a perfect event. But it’s near perfect. 

It has found a sweet spot by finding a way to generate enormous revenue, some $1 billion annually, but not at the expense of the quality of the property. The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee recently assessed whether it is time to expand the event from 68 teams – and they decided expansion is not imminent.

Committee members have told On3 that they take their role as “stewards” of the property seriously. And opinions from a wide array of stakeholders on expansion have varied. Mike Tranghese, the former Big East commissioner, told On3 in the spring he was “appalled” by the mere possibility of substantial expansion.

Could potential expansion lockout mid-majors?

That said, if expansion would thwart a coming lockout of mid-major programs, go ahead and add at-large berths. Two other prominent college basketball sources told On3 on Monday that they agreed.

“If they expand it, people will still watch it,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas recently told On3. “They’ll still love it. It won’t be an issue. And the idea that we’re going stop doing things that enhance revenue because our principles don’t allow it, come on, man. Who you kidding?”

If, down the road, the move is for power leagues to unite and lockout mid-major programs, that would have a more dramatic effect on the event’s appeal than expansion. It would diminish the widespread allure of the property to an unknown degree.

“It is perfect as it is,” AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco told On3 in March. “Everybody loves it the way it is.”

Bilas has long said the NCAA tournament is idiot-proof. Despite all the dysfunction within the NCAA over the years, the one thing that always remained intact was the annual magic of the NCAA tournament.

March Madness has its own vernacular: 12 seeds ousting five seeds, “survive and advance” being uttered countless times and bracketology thriving as a cottage industry. Not even the beleaguered NCAA has found a way to screw that up.

But that doesn’t mean networks can’t bungle it. That Fox and power leagues are discussing the concept of a postseason tournament doesn’t foreshadow doom for the golden goose, the NCAA tournament. But it’s an ominous sign.

If The Messenger report is a trial balloon, let’s pop it now.