Gene Wojciechowski says, “Expanding to 96 teams would be like aiming a fire hose at a glass of Dom Perignon. It would dilute it beyond recognition. It would ruin it.” Terence Moore calls it, “The Death of March Madness,” and Tracee Hamilton says it’s “the worst idea in the history of ideas.”

It’s safe to say public opinion is against expanding the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams. The current format has been in place for 25 years (except for expanding by one in 2001) and most think it’s perfect just the way it is. They think adding more teams would dilute the product. Why reward mediocre teams with a tournament bid? For those opposed to the expansion, the satirical Onion Sports Network probably summed it up best.

But all of these arguments have been made before. They were made when the tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975 and again when it went to 40 in ’79, and also in ’83 when it expanded to 52 teams and of course when it went to its current format of 16 seeds in four regions in 1985.

This isn’t to argue that the current expansion is a good or bad thing, but just to show that sports would move on regardless. While tournament expansion isn’t currently very popular, talk of the NFL changing its overtime rules is. It just goes to show that throughout the history of sports, rules and formats have been changed and amended – some more popular than others - but the games go on and fans keep watching.

NCAA Tournament expansion and changing NFL overtime are just the most recent examples of possible rule and format changes. Here are the Top 10 Biggest Changes in the Past 30 Years.