Two of the most popular tournaments in college sports are March Madness and the College Football Playoff. The two events are held over roughly a month-long period at the end of the season, with the hope of crowning a national champion.
In the past number of years, the NCAA has pushed for both leagues to expand these tournaments. On May 7, college basketball agreed to this, expanding its 68-team field up to 76. The NCAA believes this allows more student-athletes to experience the championship hunt.
On top of this, the NCAA is also taking advantage of its current surge in interest, as this expansion also gives more screen time to its providers that show these games. TBS, CBS, TNT and TruTV all had a plethora of viewers throughout the 2026 edition of the tournament, and these numbers will only increase with more games for fans to watch.
The 76 teams draw more eyes and highlight young stars before the draft, but that does not mean much for the Mid-American Conference and Ohio. This year, the MAC saw two March berths for the first time since 1999, when the committee entered both the MAC champion Akron and the 31-1 Miami University to play in the tournament, but that was not without skepticism from both ends.
Miami may have had a perfect season, but it lost its first-round game in the MAC Tournament in Cleveland. This loss affected Selection Sunday and made the college basketball world riot when the MAC saw its second bid fight for its life in Dayton to even play its way into the tournament, but that was how the field fell.
This eight-team expansion may aid the MAC in getting a second team to this set of 12 play-in games, instead of the current four, but the metrics and data always point to leaving mid-major programs out. This addition will not be enough to allow programs like Ohio to sneak into March Madness, unless it has a record similar to that of Miami this year.
Instead, this expansion makes winning a conference tournament even more important for mid-major programs because these play-in games will likely consist of one strong team, like Miami, and 11 power conference teams.
The other six games are going to be between the 15 and 16 seeds. The MAC typically falls between the 12th and 13th seed line, so Ohio would have to bank on winning the MAC or putting together a season of fewer than five losses.
Now, this eight-team addition may sound major to college basketball, but it is nothing compared to what the NCAA wants to do with the College Football Playoff. It is aiming to double the current 12-team bracket to one with 24 teams, but the holdup here is with conferences not agreeing on a format.
The current 12-team format puts in the best four conference winners, which would almost always be the four power conferences getting representation. Then, the next seven teams, based on the opinion of the selection committee, will be placed in this playoff as well, another seven teams from power conferences.
The final piece of the puzzle is a lone representative from the Group of Six. The Group of Six includes the Sun Belt, Conference USA, American, Mountain West, PAC 12 and the MAC conferences. This one postseason bid against a heavy power conference favorite will never satisfy a Group of Six participant, and expansion only makes it harder for these teams, which are already at a disadvantage.
Boise State, James Madison and Tulane have been the three representatives over the first two years of the 12-team playoff, but the hesitation from the NCAA and the power conferences to allow more Group of Six teams in the field is that the average loss for them is over three touchdowns. Unfortunately, the playoff expansion is also about making money, and blowout matchups will not be something the NCAA wants to sell.
The proposed 24-team playoff has seen many different models, but one thing has been certain: the Group of Six will get no more than two automatic bids in this expansion, but some formats have the conferences remaining with just one.
It is no secret that the Big Ten and SEC have a lot of leverage on this decision, but to completely overlook six conferences when looking for a champion feels like a superconference is in the near future for college football, and that will not be good for Ohio or anyone in the Group of Six.
