More changes are coming to men's and women's college basketball. Over the past few months, multiple changes have occurred in college basketball, including the landmark revenue-sharing programs that will begin in July.
Federal Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement at the beginning of June. It allows schools to directly pay athletes from a revenue-sharing pool capped at $20.5 million for the 2025-2026 season.
The bulk of the money will be divided among men's and women's basketball, football, and wrestling, with the cap projected to increase every year.
In response, the four major sports formed "Flight Funds" programs as a charitable avenue for donors to give directly to the programs or a general fund.
In addition to the revenue-sharing programs, an NCAA oversight committee made multiple changes to men's college basketball, focusing on the pace of play.
The rule changes that were put in place include adding a coach's challenge that can be used at any point during the game in response to an out-of-bounds call, basket interference, goaltending, or a player in the restricted area.
After the new rules were put in place, the NCAA Division I Council also approved a regular season game expansion.
NEWS: The College basketball regular season is expanding to a 32-game limit, @MattNorlander reports🏀
— On3 (@On3sports) June 25, 2025
Teams will not be required to, but the move allows programs to schedule more nonconference games starting in the 2026-27 season.https://t.co/sU1GXsVRue pic.twitter.com/pAmG0vJTOy
CBS Sports' Matt Norlander reports that a committee approved expanding the regular season from 31 to 32 games, beginning in the 2026-2027 season. The move was made to encourage teams to schedule better non-conference games later in the season.
The expansion ends a 19-year span of a 31-game maximum for the regular season.
Starting in the 2026-2027 season, teams can schedule an extra game, but they will not be forced to do so. Most teams are expected to increase their schedule to the new 32-game maximum.
The extra game allows teams to play a better opponent later in the season and potentially add more highly-ranked Quad wins to their NCAA Tournament resume.
Norlander notes that money is a big driving factor for the 32-game maximum. With more games comes more revenue, which can be used to pay athletes.