March Madness, ordinarily one of the most joyous events in sports, is becoming weighed down by hurt feelings and recriminations. 

The NCAA on Selection Sunday unveiled the 68-team field for the men’s Division I basketball tournament, led by UConn as the top overall seed. While debates rage every year about perceived tournament snubs, the exclusions this year are arguably reaching a new level, raising new questions about how the brackets are filled. 

Among the recent flash-points surrounding the 2024 tournament field:

• Indiana State, ranked No. 28 in NCAA NET rankings, set a new record for the highest-ranked team in those tabulations to be left out of the tournament. That made Sycamores coach Josh Schertz brand the team’s history-making status as “beyond disappointing.”
• The Big East had particularly raw feelings after No. 32 St. John’s was left out of the tournament, a fate also befalling No. 58 Providence and No. 67 Seton Hall. The conference was the second best in all of D-I, according to noted statistician Ken Pomeroy, but received only three bids—its smallest total since 1993—compared to eight each for the Big 12 and SEC, and six for the Big Ten (KenPom conferences Nos. 1, 3, and 4). Providence coach Kim English lashed out at the metrics helping to inform the selection committee, particularly those appearing to reward teams for running up the score in games against lesser opponents. “I think the analytics are bulls***,” English told reporters. “I think you could schedule bad teams in your non-league [schedule] and beat the snot out of them. Coaching for so long has been a gentlemen’s agreement … but right now, [there] might be a change in college basketball.”
• St. John’s turned down an invitation to the second-tier National Invitation Tournament on Sunday, as did the Big 12’s Oklahoma and ACC’s Pittsburgh, with the start of the transfer portal holding some influence on those decisions. Red Storm coach Rick Pitino also denounced the NCAA’s evaluation metrics, saying, “I think we all should probably never mention that word [NET] again because it’s fraudulent. I think the NET is something that shouldn’t even be mentioned anymore.” Several other schools, including Indiana, Memphis, and Ole Miss, previously signaled they also had no interest in the NIT.
• The situation even captured the attention of Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), who posted on X, “I don’t get it. So if you aren’t a football conference the NCAA isn’t interested.”

In each of these instances, millions of dollars are at stake for the involved schools and their conferences. 

Non–Power 5 conferences, meanwhile, have an additional burden in the tournament. Eight First Four and first-round games feature teams from outside the Power 5 pitted against one another, equal to the number of such games in last year’s field. While that guarantees at least eight non-elite teams will win at least one game, it also immediately eliminates an equal number. 

The new operator of Sports Illustrated is anything but a household name among general consumers, but for years it has been one of the most widely trafficked outfits in digital sports media. And while Minute Media’s acquisition of the SI publishing rights offers a new realm of hope for the long-embattled company, it also presents an entirely fresh set of expectations. 

Minute Media struck an agreement Monday with Authentic Brands Group—the licensing giant that owns SI—to take the magazine and website publishing rights previously held by The Arena Group. Founded in Israel in 2011 and now operating around the world, Minute Media owns digital brands such as The Players’ Tribune, FanSided, and the soccer-oriented 90min. Those titles have a certain prominence—and Minute Media has consistently ranked among the top 10 entities in U.S. digital sports media as measured monthly by Comscore—but the SI publishing rights bring an entirely different level of attention. 

Executives for Minute Media clearly acknowledged the heft of that incoming task in a memo sent Monday to its own staffers.

“Sports Illustrated is the gold standard for sports journalism in the U.S and around the world, and has been for nearly 70 years across both print and digital media,” wrote Minute Media CEO and founder Asaf Peled. “The weight and power of that distinction cannot be understated.”

In addition to the core SI operations themselves, the agreement also includes the long-running SI Swimsuit edition, SI Kids, and SI’s FanNation.

The arrival of Minute Media represents a sizable turn for SI after months of rising turmoil that have included a near-total layoff of the editorial staff, artificial intelligence controversies, and a combative company culture under The Arena Group’s Manoj Bhargava.

The Minute Media deal offers an opportunity for SI to turn the page. But the deal also means a potential ideological clash between the short-form, mobile-oriented content Minute Media focuses on, and the long-form material that is core to SI’s venerable brand. 

“We have said from the start that our top priorities are to keep Sports Illustrated alive, uphold the legacy of the institution and protect our union jobs,” Emma Baccellieri, staff writer for SI and vice chair for the SI Union, said in a statement to Front Office Sports. “We look forward to discussing a future with Minute Media that does that.”

To that end, Minute Media intends to take the next couple of weeks to assess future staffing and organizational needs. 

The initial deal is for 10 years with the option to extend it with two more 10-year deals, a source with knowledge of the agreement tells FOS. Authentic will take an equity stake in Minute Media as part of the deal. The SI agreement follows a January fundraising by Minute Media that valued the company at more than $1 billion, with that influx involving large institutional investors such as HSBC and BlackRock. 

—A.J. Perez contributed to this report.

LeBron James and JJ Redick announced the launch of a new podcast Monday, and FOS has a few more details about the genesis of the project and what to expect moving forward.

Episodes of Mind the Game will be produced by James’s Uninterrupted and Redick’s ThreeFourTwo Productions, featuring the two basketball savants dissecting the X’s and O’s of the game. A source familiar with the arrangement tells FOS that James and Redick came up with the idea for the podcast while talking hoops over dinner and wine in Las Vegas during the NBA In-Season Tournament (“This should be the show! This is the show!”), which the Lakers would go on to win.

Consistent with that meeting: The show will stay more focused on basketball than off-court topics, and the pair’s shared love of wine, as seen in a teaser for the debut episode, will be a through line. Mind the Game’s YouTube page suggests the stars will sit down weekly, but with equally busy schedules, the source says a true cadence is unclear at this point; it will come down to when they each have time to record. And that YouTube home is important: Mind the Game will launch with no media (or advertising) partners, as James and Redick want the show and its format to be 100% their own, no notes from above, akin to what Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee have with their own independently produced shows that are syndicated on major platforms.