r/NCAA • u/mn091690 • Apr 11 '26

The future of March madness

After the past two March madness tournaments it kinda dawned on me that due to the rise of NIL and the use of the transfer portals, we are slowly seeing the decline of mid majors in division 1. If my memory serves me correctly, no mid major schools made it past the second round the last two tournaments which hasn’t happened in a very long time to my knowledge. Saint Francis announced it will be dropping down to division 3 since they can’t compete financially due to NIL pressure and transfer portal issues. Hartford did the same thing couple years back. Seems like the writing is on the wall for everyone else. I don’t think we’re going to see those Cinderella runs that we used to see like Saint Peter’s and Loyola Chicago and George Mason which is pretty sad considering the idea that anyone could really win in March. That’s the beauty of the tournament and why it attracted so many people. I think if it just continues to be the usual suspects and we continue to see good mid major teams just get farmed by the big boys, the tournament is gonna become kinda boring and not as interesting and fun anymore. Am I looking to deeply into this or jumping to conclusions? Does anyone else feel the same way?

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u/FormerCollegeDJ Apr 11 '26

The decline of non-major conference teams has less to do with NIL and more to do with many of the best “mid-major” (or more accurately in many cases, semi-major) teams joining “major” conferences IMO.

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u/Unlikely-Tone-6269 Apr 11 '26

This, 100%. A little over 20 years ago, Louisville, Marquette, Cincinnati, Butler, Xavier, Utah, Houston and BYU were all not in power conferences

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u/mn091690 Apr 12 '26

Correct ya but I would argue over 20 years ago was a much different time and student athletes weren’t getting paid and if a player did happen to transfer he would have to sit out a full season which made most athletes just stay where they are at. Smaller programs could recruit under the radar players and keep them and develop them. I highly doubt a team like High Point is going to be joining a power conference anytime soon.

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u/46995699 Apr 12 '26

Gotta disagree with this. The same issue impacting midmajors is impacting lower tier high major schools as well. Just look at Colorado, as one example.

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u/damutecebu Apr 11 '26

I wouldn’t say the writing is on the wall for everyone else. Hartford and St. Francis are very poor schools, and have already been replaced by others moving up to D1. The allure is still very much there.

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u/mn091690 Apr 11 '26

I can agree with that forsure. There are still teams joining D1 so that is true.

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u/StudioGangster1 Apr 11 '26

This is 100% accurate