All money isn’t good money.
It’s a life lesson that must be learned by those with a hunger for increasing their income. Typically, the refrain is used in rags-to-riches style films, where one must confront the reality that desperation leaves them vulnerable to overlooking a trap or taking a dumb risk. In other film styles, it’s exchanging humiliation for a paycheck. For those who have seen Marty Supreme, think of his relationship with Milton Rockwell.
Weeks ago, in an article about Demond Williams
Jr., I referenced C.R.E.A.M., a classic rap song with an acronym as its title that stands for Cash Rules Everything Around Me. In 2026, it ruins everything around me.
The NCAA is expanding its tournament field to 76 teams for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. I have no issue with watching more postseason basketball, but the fact that it’s strictly rooted in financial gain is why I, like many others, find it deplorable.
It’s greedy. Why fix a good thing that is as far from broken as any postseason in sports? The
answer is simple: they ran the numbers and saw an opportunity to invite more teams to the tournament, so more fans would buy tickets to games. That’s all it is. It won’t make the tournament better; it won’t revive Cinderella now that the transfer portal has lowered the odds of her ever finding that coveted glass slipper. It won’t add to the allure of March Madness.
There is nothing to fix, so there is no need for a change. If anything, learn from the women’s game, and practically every other regular season in the sport, regardless of league or country, and make the game four quarters rather than two halves. But greed often blinds us to need.
It’s not solely a college basketball issue. We’ve watched Netflix and Disney+ usher in the death of password sharing, which is what made streaming such an innovative change in the first place. Two weekends ago, I watched hours of advertisements with a side of action while sitting through two nights of Wrestlemania 42. Three ladder match entrances were skipped because ads ran in their place.
Yet despite this frustration, I know that it is foolish to hope for change. All the commercials that interrupt NBA and NFL playoff games are here to stay, and they will keep increasing. Wrestlemania matches will probably continue to get shorter as advertisements become the true champion of the night, and college sports will continue making changes under the false label of parity and competition while chasing money.
Inevitable and unnecessary changes await the things we love most.
The 12-team College Football Playoff has been enjoyable, though there have been first-round blowouts, but that’s college football for you. There is nothing about the sport that suggests it needs a bigger playoff, especially one that seeds 24 teams. Yet coaches and athletic directors are pushing for expansion because they foolishly believe it will increase job security and salaries by adding playoff berths to their list of achievements.
As if it wasn’t obvious: making the CFP is less impressive if more teams are permitted. Washington’s two trips to the four-team playoff will be far more impressive than its next one.
As if reaching postseasons is enough to keep boosters and fans off a leader’s back. James Franklin made the College Football Playoff one season before his firing. In the NFL, the Buffalo Bills fired Sean McDermott after another postseason ended without a trip to the Super Bowl. Both the Milwaukee Bucks (Mike Budenholzer) and Denver Nuggets (Mike Malone) moved on from championship-winning coaches just a couple of years after reaching the mountaintop.
Now, I’m not one to fault college coaches and athletic directors for wanting greater job security and higher pay. But that desire leads the group to overlook reality. Fans won’t think it’s as impressive as the group wants them to believe.
The College Football Playoff tends to bring out the best in manipulators. Its decision-makers managed to convince the masses that a single round of on-site playoff games was a groundbreaking move. The selling point was that they were maintaining the tradition and pageantry of New Year’s Six bowl games by using those bowls as playoff sites for the quarterfinals and semifinals. But the decision-makers knew that hotel packages, ticket prices, and in-stadium vendors at neutral-site games would be far more beneficial while also keeping the NY6 bowls happy.
I mean, think about it. Wouldn’t it have made sense to keep three neutral-site games, as in the four-team CFP format, and have the other games on campus, furthering the importance of the regular season because home-field advantage could remain in play up until the national championship game?
You can argue that playing at neutral sites protects teams from inclement weather. NFL fans sitting in frigid stadiums during playoff games will tell you to cry them a frozen river.
This is typically the part where I put a positive spin on things. More spots in the NCAA Tournament mean a higher chance of the struggling Husky men’s basketball program dancing in March or sustained success for women’s basketball. And a 24-team playoff makes it much more likely to see the Huskies competing for a national championship on the gridiron.
But that’s how decision-makers fool you.
They get you to focus on the gain for your preferred team and ignore the sports foundation crumbling, displacing lifelong supporters who struggle to keep up with the annual changes.
College sports continue to jump into a pool of money and show their best stroke while the rest of us drown.
