NCAA's final steps to expand basketball championships to 76 teams

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INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — The NCAA has begun the final steps to expand the men's and women's basketball tournaments to 76 teams, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.

The expansion, which has been discussed for well over a year, is on track to be formalized in the upcoming weeks and would begin this coming season. Sources indicated mid-May as a potential timeline for an announcement.

"They have what they need to move forward," - unknown source to Pete Thamel.

Also, according to a story by Pete Thamel, NCAA officials met with media partners for the men's tournament last week; they were in the final steps of the media contracts, but had not been signed. 

Once the contracts are completed, the NCAA would also need approval from various committees that include the men's and women's basketball committees, the men's and women's basketball oversight committees, the Division I cabinet, and the Division I board of governors.

The primary driver of this move hasn't been money, but rather access for at-large bids for power conferences. The expansion has been pushed by power conferences, which have grown throughout the course of the current deal.

The expansion would lead to an additional eight men's games, meaning the Tuesday and Wednesday of the NCAA tournament would feature 24 of the 76 men's teams. That number now includes eight teams that would have qualified for the traditional bracket that would square off against the eight at-large additions.

The traditional 64-team men's bracket would still begin Thursday and look much the same. The major difference would be that more teams that qualify as traditional at-larges would have to play earlier than the 64-team bracket.