Every year, the NCAA hosts March Madness, a single-elimination bracket-style tournament in which 68 teams compete in seven rounds for the national championship. A selection committee uses bids to determine which teams play in the tournament.
There are two types of bids: automatic and at-large. In automatic bids, each of the 31 conference winners (e.g., ACC, ASUN, SEC) gets an automatic entry into the brackets. In at-large bids, the committee chooses around 36 teams based on their overall performance during the season.
Automatic bids make sense, as the conference winners should earn an entry into the championship tournament. However, at-large bid receivers don’t have to win their tournament to receive one.
One way at-large teams have changed the tournament’s outcomes is by allowing the underdog team to have a shot at the championship game. In 2011, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) made it into the tournament via the First Four play-in round, where the eight lowest-ranked teams competed to be the last four teams entered into the brackets.
The team beat out the University of Southern California to earn its ticket to the Final Four. It had an unexpected run, beating out big-name schools like Purdue University and Florida State University. VCU ended up in the semifinal round, losing to Butler University by eight points.
Critics often point out that lower-seeded teams like VCU that go on these “Cinderella Story” runs rarely win the championship game, can eliminate the best or most popular teams too early, and don’t last long overall.
Sometimes, though, the runs last long enough to win the championship game. In 1985, the Villanova University Wildcats started as the eighth seed, meaning they had to play through and win six games to advance to the final matchup.
In the championship game, the Wildcats faced the Georgetown University Hoyas and beat them in a close game with a last-second free throw, 66-64. After this game, the Wildcats made many more attempts at the championship, making it to the Final Four in 2009 and winning the tournament again in 2016, ending a 31-year championship drought.
At-large bids are good for the game. They allow for unexpected upsets or overall winners and give smaller schools a chance to throw their hats into the ring that big-name schools like Florida State University and Duke University largely dominate.
While networks favor the big-name schools because they bring in more viewers and revenue, everyone should be able to have a chance to compete.
