I just want away from the fucking eye test. I’m sorry, I don’t give a shit which network or talking head rattles on about quality of loss/win.
Adding 4 teams may very well be disputed by the 9th team. But it allows the possibility of a Cinderella. Sure the narrative will always be the favorite should win. But like the NCAA’s, upsets will happen.
The fact that the underdog could win is why the basketball tournament grew in the way that it did from 16. It allowed multiple teams from a conference to enter (when only one ACC team could get in). And it provided excitement.
will it devalue the regular season? Probably to a degree. But with more than one chance of getting in we should see far better match ups in the regular season as we do in basketball. Just this year basketball opened up with a tournament that included Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State. Those teams never would never have agreed to that in the old days, under the old metric. The fact they know they can still get in with a loss is why we get to see match ups like this early in the season.