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Will March Madness see an expansion in upcoming years · The Jake Wimberly Podcast

• 0:00
  Kelly Ford k Ford ratings on your radio on a Tuesday. Kelly, welcome
• 0:06
  in, sir. How you doing. I'm doing well, Jake, how
• 0:08
  are you today? We're good. We're just talking through these numbers. You
• 0:11
  know, a lot of NFL in our one. I want to get some
• 0:13
  college basketball with you, maybe a college football question by the end of the
• 0:16
  show. Of your two segments here, I appreciate you as always. Let
• 0:19
  me ask you this almost going through a piece on college basketball, and it
• 0:25
  was it's basically you may have read it from Dan Wetzel Yahoo Sports talking about,
• 0:30
  you know, March Madness. TV ratings tell the story. The tournament
• 0:32
  is perfect as it is a lot of the back and forth, you know
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  as well known national story on expansion and this, that and the other with
• 0:39
  the tournament. I fully expect this thing to expand just because of monetary value
• 0:43
  on the television contracts. But is it perfect in your mind? Does it
• 0:47
  need expansion and is it warranted? I agree with you, Jake that I
• 0:51
  believe it will expand as well because more games needs more money. And as
• 0:54
  we've seen in college football and really any business venture, which that's what this
• 0:58
  is, more revenue is good for those that run it. So I do
• 1:00
  think it will expand. I actually I wouldn't say it's perfect right now,
• 1:04
  Jake. I actually Dayton does a good job hosting the first four. But
• 1:08
  ideally, if we're going to change the number, I think going back to
• 1:11
  sixty four, and I know we've had sixty five for even years before we
• 1:14
  were at sixty eight. I think sixty four is just a nice clean bracket.
• 1:18
  Everybody loves that. Thursday and Friday didn't have nearly as many upsets this
• 1:23
  year as we've seen in years past. If you look at the sweet sixteen,
• 1:26
  you know you've only got three teams that are somewhat unexpected. Do you
• 1:30
  want to say NC State, Clemson, and then maybe San Diego State.
• 1:33
  I think a lot of people probably had Gonzaga beating Kansas even though they are
• 1:36
  at five seeds. So I think it is certainly better now than it would
• 1:42
  be if it were to expand. I love the upsets, and I love
• 1:47
  the storylines and all that. I don't think expansion is going to get the
• 1:49
  types of teams in the tournament. They're gonna be able to provide that.
• 1:53
  If you expand this thing, you're looking at letting in some of these big
• 1:57
  East Bubble teams that missed it, you know, Saint John's Vidence, some
• 2:00
  of these ACC schools that missed it Pittsburgh Like, these aren't Cinderella teams.
• 2:05
  These are teams that finish five hundred or worse in their conferences, the big
• 2:08
  conferences, and those are the teams that you're going to be putting in here.
• 2:12
  What does that do then, to the format of the first round?
• 2:15
  Do you move automatic qualifiers from lower conferences mid majors such as Oakland, you
• 2:21
  know out of the horizon Leaguho upsets Kentucky. Do they now have to play
• 2:23
  their way into the round of sixty four? If so, that makes it
• 2:28
  harder for them to advance and to have that upset moment. You could say
• 2:30
  the signature upsets so far of this tournament are Oakland over Kentucky and probably Yale
• 2:36
  over Auburn. Those two teams. Do they have to now play their way
• 2:39
  into the round of sixty four? If we expand? I would hate to
• 2:42
  see that. I certainly do not want to see expansion, but like you
• 2:45
  would not be surprised at all if it happens.