"Being done with money in mind": Insider makes feelings known on NCAA's latest scheduling change, increase in regular season games

The NCAA is making big changes to the college basketball landscape. According to reports, beginning from the 2026-27 season, Division I men’s and women’s basketball teams will be allowed to schedule up to 32 regular-season games.

The update comes after 19 years of a 31-game maximum for the regular season. Since the 2006-07 season, the format consisted of 28 or 29 predetermined games, along with the allowance for three-game or two-game multi-team events, which made it a 31-game cap.

When the NCAA issued an update on the schedule expansion on Wednesday, insider Matt Norlander weighed in on the decision to allow extra games for teams.

"The move to 32 is also, naturally, being done with money in mind. One more game will mean one more home and/or neutral-court opportunity for a lot of high-major programs, which are now looking for revenue in any way possible after the House case settlement ushered in revenue sharing for college athletes," Norlander wrote in his column for CBS.

"Home gates at games bring in more revenue to be able to pay athletes. Sources around college athletics speculated that the increase to 32 games is just the first phase, and that by early-to-mid 2030s the regular season could go to 34 or 35 games prior to the start of conference tournament play."

Although Norlander feels that expansion of games is being done to encourage even more high-profile nonconference games, he also suggests that it would bring more revenue to the teams' athletic departments.

College Basketball's NCAA Tournament could also be expanded to 72 games next season

Florida Gators HC Todd Golden - Source: Imagn

While there are currently 68 teams allowed to partake in the Big Dance, it could expand to fit a maximum of 76 teams amid ongoing talks with broadcast partners As the NCAA is set to make a major decision in the coming weeks regarding the expansion.

Last month, NCAA President Charlie Baker shared an update about the potential March Madness expansion.

“We’ve had good conversations with CBS and WBD,” Baker said at the Big 12 spring meetings in May. “Our goal here is to try to either get to yes or no sometime in the next few months, because there’s a lot of logistical work that would be associated with doing this, if we were to go down this road.”

Baker also suggested that the expansion would come by the 2025-26 season.

“That would be the goal—to try and do this for next year, which is why the window to actually negotiate it will probably end sometime early summer,” Baker said. "We’ve been talking about 72 and 76. Those have been the numbers the basketball committee’s talked about. It would obviously be one or the other, won’t be more.”

There's a likelihood that men's and women's brackets for the NCAA Tournament will field the same number of teams from next season onward.