The Expansion Nobody Wanted; CFP to 24? Warriors' Awful Annnouncing; Stanford's Big Loss

Bigger isn't necessarily better.

Case in point: March Madness.

A few days ago the NCAA approved an expansion of its Men's and Women's Basketball Championships to 76 teams. 

Nobody other than a few committee members, athletic directors and conference commissioners thinks this is a good idea.

So we'll now have 12 "play-in," first round games to reach the optimum 64-team bracket. 

How silly. How absurd. You might say, a different kind of "Madness."

I'm not the only one who thinks this is nuts. The top coaches in the game have the same feeling:

Gonzaga's Mark Few: "I am adamantly opposed. It's totally unnecessary. It's the dumbing down of the regular season, which is sad...Don't screw with something when you already know it's great."

UConn's Dan Hurley: "What I think makes the tournament special is the qualification for it. You don't want the regular season to be rendered meaningless. It should be a privilege to play in the tournament, not a right."

Illinois' Brad Underwood: "Don't understand. Why? Who is pushing this? Not good for mid-majors, low-majors at all."

Michigan State's Tom Izzo: "I hate to break something that isn't broken."

Former Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski: "It's a big mistake. I don't think you mess with something that is gold, and the NCAA Tournament is certainly that."

As we pointed out last week, they're not expanding the tournament to give access to more teams like St. Peter's, Butler, Fairleigh Dickinson or Florida Gulf Coast, the Cinderellas who over the years have helped make March Madness so special.

No, they're expanding to add Power Four teams like Oklahoma, which lost nine straight games at one point last year, and Auburn, which was 17-16 and tied with Oklahoma for 11th in the SEC, and Indiana, which lost six of its last seven.

All deserving of playing for the national title, right?

CFP to 24? And while we're on the subject of expansion, we should also note the growing momentum to increase the College Football Playoff from 12 teams to 24. To most reasonable college football fans, going to 16 seemed like the obvious move. 

But 24? It wasn't that long ago that the championship was two teams, then four, until a couple of years ago when the field was expanded to 12. Now we're going to double that?

Few, if any, fans want to see the March Madness field expanded to 76 teams. And few, if any, want to see the College Football Playoff expanded to 24 teams so that a bunch of 8-4 teams have a chance to win the national title.

There's only one reason for this.

It's a naked money grab. The needless expansion of the NCAA Basketball Championships and possibly the College Football Playoff is due to one thing and one thing only--the need to generate more money to pay players, coaches, athletic directors and commissioners.

The NCAA will get an additional $50 million for its basketball expansion. The CFP number, still to be negotiated depending on whether it expands to 16 or 24, will likely be even larger.

It's all because colleges have to come up with more and more NIL money to entice athletes to attend their schools. 

For years the NCAA banned "pay for play," but now that's exactly what's happening throughout the country.

The top NCAA football teams will spend $40 million on their players this year and $10 million or more on their head coach. The best basketball teams will spend in excess of $10 million for players.

The House Settlement's $20.5 million "cap" for athlete revenue share is a joke. Schools are spending three times that amount thanks to "third party" deals with donors and corporations, most of them arranged by the athletic departments.

The train has left the station and there are few rules or enforcement procedures to keep it on the rails. 

Because of the NCAA's abysmal track record in the courtroom, and the fear of athletes suing for antitrust violations, no one is stopping the escalation in NIL payments nor the illegal poaching of athletes.

Unlike professional sports leagues--which have salary caps that limit compensation and contracts that keep players from unlimited free agency--college sports is unrestrained and completely out of control at this point.

Right now, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is the lone holdout opposing the expansion of the CFP to 24 teams. Apparently the commissioners of the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC are all now in favor of 24.

The change can't move forward without Sankey's approval.

Hang in there, Greg.

Warriors' Awful Announcing: Each year Awful Announcing asks its readers to rate the NBA local broadcasting teams. And this season, for the third year in a row, the Warriors team of Bob Fitzgerald, Kelenna Azubuike and Kerith Burke finished 30th, dead last.

The Warriors' team had an average rating of "F". The next lowest rating averaged "C", so it wasn't a close call.

The main target of criticism was Fitzgerald, who was noted for being "condescending," "excessive criticism of the officials," and "homerism."

Can't disagree.

Big Stanford Loss: The departure of 26-year veteran Matt Doyle is a huge blow to the Stanford football program. 

Doyle held the football organization together through eight head coaches, in good times and bad, from Tyrone Willingham, Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw to Buddy Teevins and Walt Harris, from three Rose Bowls to a 1-11 season.

Matt is one of the best in the business, especially in the areas of team operations and alumni relations.

He will be missed.