Heartland Exclusive: Yormark Weighs In on NCAA Tournament Expansion Talks

FRISCO, Texas — The Star in Frisco is the epicenter of Big 12 football this week, but it’s worth noting that a big moment looms for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

As soon as next week the conference commissioners should get an update from NCAA president Charlie Baker on potential expansion of an event that is the entity’s biggest money maker — and an event that a vast majority of fans don’t want to see expanded.

Both tournaments are at 68 teams. The NCAA is considering expansion to 72 or 76 teams. Baker has been vocal in his favor of expansion.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, in a one-on-one conversation with Heartland College Sports during Big 12 media days, explained why he’s interested in tournament expansion even in the face of a fan majority that doesn’t want it.

“I will say from a conference perspective, access matters,” Yormark said. “More access is good for a conference like the Big 12, which is very deep when you think about our men’s basketball programs. We’ll see what happens.”

Since 2018, a span of seven NCAA Tournaments, the Big 12 has seen a team reach the Final Four five times. Two of those teams — Baylor in 2021 and Kansas in 2022 — won national championships.

Houston reached the championship game last April, while Texas Tech reached the title game in 2019. Kansas also made it to the Final Four in 2018.

CBS Sports recently did the math on access for at-large teams in the NCAA Tournament the past 10 years and found that 83% of the at-large bids went to power conference programs. Expansion, in the eyes of many, would benefit conferences like the Big 12 over mid-major or low-major programs.

It is Yormark’s job to look out for his conference, so his being in favor of exploring expansion — a position he’s been public with previously — is understandable.

Every conference that lands teams in the field and sees them advance accumulates NCAA units, which go into the revenue share pile for member schools. The more schools that get in and advance, the more money the Big 12 can make and share.

Per Sportico, the Big 12’s seven teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament helped make $40 million for the league, money that will be paid out over the next several years.

The economics matter, Yormark said. But they also matter when it comes to whether expansion happens. Unprompted, he did provide a scenario in which expansion of the NCAA Tournament would not happen.

“I’m talking to the [power] four commissioners, and we’ll see where he [Baker] is in his conversations with TNT and CBS because, ultimately, it comes down to the economics,” Yormark said. “No one wants [the tournament] to get diluted. And I’ve said that before. So, there have to be more resources that are brought into the tournament in order to support expansion. If that doesn’t’ happen, then it’ll stay where it is.”