History
The first national championship tournament, in 1939, was conducted by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and sanctioned by the NCAA, which took over the tournament in 1940.
From 1939 through 1950, one team was chosen from each of the NCAA's eight districts. Four of them competed in a western tournament and four in an eastern tournament, with the two champions then playing for the national title.
The tournament expanded to 16 teams in 1951, with 10 conference champions automatically qualifying and 6 at-large teams chosen by a committee. The move to the "Final Four" came the following year, when the number of regional tournaments was increased from two to four.
In 1954, the number of teams grew to 24, with 15 conference champions and 9 at-large teams. The number varied somewhat until 1975, when a 32-team bracket was adopted and the selection committee was allowed to choose a second team from a conference as an at-large entry.
The field has grown twice since then, to 48 in 1980 and to 64 in 1988. The number of conference champions automatically qualifying is subject to change from year to year, but under NCAA rules they can make up no more than half the teams in the tournament. The others are chosen by a committee, with the help of a computer ranking system.
The NCAA championship game was first televised in 1954, but television didn't have a major impact on the tournament until 1969, when NBC's national telecast drew a large audience, mainly because UCLA was going after an unprecedented third straight championship.
UCLA's remarkable record--five more titles in the first six years of the 1970s, including four more in a row--helped build even larger audiences of viewers who wamted either to see history in the making or to see the streak end. In 1973, NBC's first prime-time broadcast of the championship game, UCLA's victory over Memphis State, drew a 20.5 share, a record at the time for any basketball game, college or professional.
NBC expanded its coverage in 1978 to include the four regional championship games leading up to the Final Four. Other early-round games were carried on the TVS network and by NCAA Productions. "March Madness," as the tournament is now known, became a reality when CBS agreed to pay $18 million a year for television rights from 1982 through 1984 and ESPN began to televise all of the games that CBS didn't cover.
The NCAA tournament is now one of the major sports events on TV. Shortly after losing its share of the NFL television package in 1994, CBS agreed to pay $1.725 billion for rights to the tournament through 2002. Although no single game draws an audience comparable to that for the Super Bowl, the total package of games, with its built-in regional favorites, rivals the NFL's playoff series, the NBA playoffs, and the World Series in fan interest and television appeal.
The television money has made the tournament the NCAA's largest single source of revenue by far, especially since the association has lost rights to most major college football games.
The tournament is conducted over three weekends, two of them long weekends. Regional games are played on the first Thursday and Friday. The quarter-finals on Saturday and Sunday reduce the field to the "Sweet Sixteen."
Regional semi-finals are played on the second Thursday and Friday, with regional championship games on Saturday and Sunday producing the "Final Four". Two games on the third Saturday of the tournament determine the finalists, who meet in the championship game on Monday night.
