NCAA Suggests Tourney Expansion

The NCAA Division One Championships and Competitions Cabinet recommended bracket expansion for the championship tournaments of softball, men’s hockey and men’s lacrosse at the meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., held earlier this month.

If the changes are implemented, the men’s hockey and lacrosse championships would expand from 12 to 16 teams, and the softball championships would expand from 48 to 64. These expansions would take place in 2002-2003 if they are approved by NCAA management in April and its Board of Directors in June.

The move could, in the short term, increase the chance of ECAC hockey teams and Ivy League lacrosse teams earning NCAA at-large bids. It will have little effect on Ivy softball team’s tournament chances. No Ivy softball team has ever made NCAAs without earning the league’s automatic bid.

In financial terms, the expansion is particularly important in hockey and lacrosse, where tournaments generate the second and third most revenue of any sport, respectively, behind men’s basketball.

The committee predicted that while expansion would cost the NCAA

$212,300, it would bring in $590,000 in revenue. The lacrosse expansion should cost about $110,000 but should generate $85,400.

The softball committee proposed a format of eight teams at eight different sites, costing $350,000. Ultimately, the hope is to use baseball’s four teams at 16 sites format, with an estimated cost of $618,200. Softball presently uses an eight team at six site format.

The main purpose of these expansions, however, is not to generate revenue but to increase national exposure and competition.

Under the current format in men’s hockey, five of twelve teams (the five conference winners) get automatic berths. That number will expand to six next year, with or without expansion, as the winner of the College Hockey Alliance will receive an automatic bid as well. With the expansion, 10 teams would receive at-large berths.

“If you’re a hockey fan, it’s confusing to see how your team arrives in the final four,” Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “Deserving teams are getting bumped.”

The expansion will also eliminate byes, thereby increasing excitement and fairness, as all teams will be equally rested.

This could sustain the increased interest in collegiate hockey. At the meeting, the hockey committee reported that tournament attendance has been on the rise throughout the 1990s.

Men’s lacrosse is another sport with increasing popularity, according to Harvard men’s lacrosse coach Scott Anderson.

“Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the U.S.,” Anderson said.

Anderson sees the expansion of his sport as evidence of lacrosse’s emergence of a major sport in secondary schools and thinks that the expansion will make the regular season more exciting.

“The at-large berths are pretty significant,” Anderson said. “All the games are more meaningful. [The expansion] may support some traditional rivalries.”

Both hockey and lacrosse benefit from the fact the expansions would not increase the length of the tournaments.

The softball expansion, however, according to the baseball format, would potentially move the championship two weeks later.

The committee, though, sees great benefits to the expansion. With 16 host sites, significantly more parts of the country will be exposed to NCAA softball.

Expansion would improve the exposure of NCAA softball to the northeast in particular. In the past two years, not one northeastern team has earned the right to host an NCAA regional. This affected the Harvard softball team in 2000, when it made NCAAs and had to travel all the way to Oklahoma. An increased number of regionals would increase the chances of northeastern teams hosting and reduce travel costs for area schools.

Of the Harvard men’s lacrosse, men’s hockey, and softball teams, softball is the only program to have made NCAAs in the past five years, earning automatic berths in 1998 and 2000. Men’s lacrosse last made the tournament in 1996 and men’s hockey’s most recent selection was in 1994.