UNDATED (AP) — The expansion of March Madness and the $300 million in extra revenue that comes with it through opening sponsorships to beer, wine and liquor companies offered a brief reprieve from the steady drip of headlines this spring that underscore the problems confronting college sports. Among them are the disbanding of tennis teams at Arkansas, new efforts to generate revenue in the Big 12 and at Duke and the ongoing issues surrounding the industry's new regulator, the College Sports Commission. Odds are those issues won't be close to sorted out once the buzz over the new 76-team hoops brackets, which debut next year, subsides.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — UCLA slugger Megan Grant has tied the home run record for Division I softball. She launched her 37th of the season on Friday. The senior matched the record Arizona’s Laura Espinoza set in 1995 when she sent a solo shot over the fence in the second inning of a 19-5 win over Wisconsin in a Big Ten Tournament semifinal in College Park, Maryland. Oklahoma's Kendall Wells has 36 homers this season and the race for the record could continue through the Women's College World Series.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Division I Football Bowl Subdivisions Oversight Committee has adopted a proposal that would loosen the constraints on conferences needing one or more of its 5-7 teams to play in bowl games. Under the proposal, if all teams with at least a 6-6 record have been selected, a conference can pick any team that has a minimum multiyear Academic Progress Rate score of 930 to fill bowl commitments. The committee’s action requires Division I Cabinet approval. Currently, if 5-7 teams need to be selected for a bowl, those teams become available in descending order of their multiyear APR.
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) — The Big Ten joined the Southeastern Conference in crossing the $1 billion mark in total revenue for the 2024-25 fiscal year. And that marked a significant uptick in payouts to its member schools. The league reported roughly $1.47 billion in total revenue in its federal tax filing for the term running from July 2024 to June 2025. That was up from about $928.1 million in revenue the previous year. The league paid an average of $79.9 million to member schools receiving a full share. Oregon and Washington received reduced shares in their deals to join after leaving the Pac-12.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A second million-dollar college volleyball event will be played in late August and national power Nebraska will appear in both. The inaugural Players Era Volleyball Showcase is set for Aug. 29-30 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and will have $1 million in name, image and likeness opportunities for the four participating teams. That event follows Spikes Under the Lights on Aug. 27 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, that will distribute $1 million among four teams. Nebraska plays UNLV and Texas faces TCU on the first day of the Showcase. It's Nebraska-Texas and TCU-UNLV on the second day.
UNDATED (AP) — The NCAA will expand its March Madness tournaments by eight teams each next season. It will add more early-round games in the first week without altering the overall format. The new 76-team brackets for men and women will feature 12 games involving 24 teams. The winners will join the main 64-team bracket starting Thursday for men and Friday for women. Most new slots are expected to go to power conference teams.
UNDATED (AP) — There is no consensus among coaches in college basketball about the competitive value of expanding the NCAA Tournament from 68 to 76 teams. New Creighton coach Alan Huss said the more the merrier but that the move probably won't have a big impact on the sport overall. UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma said expansion attempts to fix something that wasn’t broken. Auriemma calls it a money grab for the Power Four conferences. Big Sky Conference Commissioner Tom Wistrcill is optimistic that expansion will serve his one-bid conference well from financial and competitive standpoints.
UNDATED (AP) — The NCAA Tournament is getting a supersized makeover, a long-expected expansion that many basketball fans should notice and pay attention to beginning next season. The sanctioning body increased the fields for its men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments to 76 teams. That means there will be eight more games — 12 total involving 24 teams — squeezed into the highly popular bracket without substantially changing the overall format.
