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The Selection Committee’s Trade-Offs in Creating the Tournament Field

In: The (Peculiar) Economics of NCAA Basketball

Author

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  • Todd A. McFall

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on the process by which the field for the Division I basketball tournament is created, paying particular attention to the Selection Committee, the group of representatives tasked with choosing over half of each season’s tournament field. The Selection Committee has a unique set of powers within the world of sports, as no other sporting event of the size of the Division I championship relies on the discretion of a committee to create its tournament field and draw. Since 1975, the year in which at-large bids were granted to teams, the Selection Committee’s power has grown steadily with the size of the tournament because it has been responsible for a larger share of the tournament field. With this power, the committee has, unsurprisingly, given resource-rich conferences priority for at-large bids into the tournament. Given the compensation structure of the Basketball Fund, the Selection Committee’s bias toward resource-rich teams has allowed the collective resources of the tournament to be consolidated further by resource-rich teams, an outcome consistent with the NCAA’s historical distaste toward finding ways to enhance competitive balance.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd A. McFall, 2014. "The Selection Committee’s Trade-Offs in Creating the Tournament Field," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The (Peculiar) Economics of NCAA Basketball, chapter 0, pages 81-105, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-38456-0_4
    DOI: 10.1057/9781137384560_4
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