The landscape of college athletics is undergoing a permanent transformation, with the College Football Playoff officially set to expand to 24 teams. This shift, which takes effect in 2027, marks a departure from the previous model where the regular season carried immense weight. By combining this expansion with changes to the college basketball tournament, a total of 100 Division I teams—24 in football and 76 in basketball—will now secure postseason berths annually. Like all of a few months ago, when college football mastered the art of the regular season and college hoops solved the conundrum of the postseason, there was a time. And – even if it was an imperfect split – both got something right, the magnitude of fall football Saturdays gave way to the madness of March. What will it really matter come March.
Critics liken this era to the character Violet Beauregarde from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” suggesting that the collegiate system is suffering from gluttonous overexpansion. Much like the character who expanded into a human blueberry, college sports have become bloated beyond recognition. This move effectively brings a “everyone gets a trophy” culture to the highest level of collegiate competition, allowing coaches to collect bonuses for participating in a heavily diluted bracket. Squeezing her back to form, though leaving her permanently blue, the Oompa Loompas eventually rolled poor Violet into the juicing room. This spring, the beautiful basketball bracket will become but a bastardized version of itself. And the last shreds of college athletics being anything but minor-league stomping grounds will continue to erode into oblivion, the rich will get richer.
The move is fundamentally driven by financial motives. Reports indicate that an expanded football playoff is expected to generate at least $300 million in additional revenue, while a larger NCAA basketball tournament is projected to bring in an extra $50 million. These funds are designed to facilitate revenue sharing among the power conferences, effectively consolidating wealth within the sport’s top tiers. Under the new model, four Power 4 teams are guaranteed playoff spots, while only one is reserved for the Group of Six.
This structural change threatens to diminish the urgency of the regular season. Historically, high-stakes games—such as Alabama’s recent victory over LSU or Utah’s win in the Holy War—carried significant playoff implications. In the new landscape, multi-loss teams are far more likely to remain in contention, turning high-profile matchups into less critical affairs. This shift mirrors the struggle in college basketball, where early-season games often fail to generate broad interest despite efforts to increase competition between top-ranked programs. This past Saturday, Alabama whacked LSU and Utah claimed the Holy War, leaving the Tigers and BYU clinging by a fingernail to their playoff hopes. Next year, both likely survive for the first-round games between multi-loss teams that we once might have simply called the Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl. Similarly, middling power conference teams, given all of the resources and opportunities available but unable to win actual games, will instead be gifted a ticket to the ball.
The power structure behind these decisions involves a coalition of conference commissioners, university presidents, athletic directors, and television executives. By prioritizing these expanded formats, the administration has created a model where revenue is aggressively captured by elite programs. While the NCAA tournament nominally follows a meritocratic approach, the distribution of at-large bids—which saw 31 of 37 spots claimed by the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC last year—suggests that established power dynamics will only intensify. University presidents, athletic directors, TV executives whose eyes cartoonishly pop like Scrooge McDuck’s with slot machine dollar signs, and the NCAA administrators who preferred the ostrich approach to an incoming earthquake – have crafted a model where the revenue is not shared; it is simply hoarded, the power brokers – the conference commissioners.
Despite the criticism, the reality for fans is a cycle of rising costs and continued consumption. While many supporters express dissatisfaction with expansion, the likelihood remains that fans will continue to watch and attend games, even as ticket, travel, and parking prices climb. This creates a financial burden on spectators, who are expected to subsidize the revenue generation required to sustain the current arms race for better players.
Ultimately, the expansion does little to resolve the core tension of the sport: regardless of whether 24 or 76 teams reach the postseason, only one program can conclude the season as the winner. As the influence of the power conferences continues to grow, observers are left questioning at what point the pursuit of additional revenue ceases to be worth the cost of stripping the collegiate postseason of its traditional meaning. But Virginia’s 19-point drubbing of Arkansas in November is the sports equivalent of a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it, good teams are doing a much better job of playing good teams early. Only one ends up happy at the end, whether the brackets include 24 teams or 76. Meanwhile, Cinderella sits outside barefoot, wondering about the frauds scurrying around in their Manolo Blahniks. This is not about expansion for the everyman and everywoman, the betterment of the game or a more engaging postseason, because to be clear. Pure and simple, it is about money. The scales always tip in their favor and – when they don’t – a well-placed elbow can ensure that they do.
