Those reasons still exist. In a 16 team bracket you need to play eight 1st-round games. Do you play all eight in the first weekend, or spread them over two weekends? ESPN has them all. Do they want to pay for production of eight games that will fragment the audience or can they persuade the schools to add another week to this marathon? As for the conference championships, The B1G is committed through 2030 to rotate their CCG among Fox, CBS, and NBC. Can ESPN buy out those rather lucrative deals? I will be watching the injury reports along the way of this ill-considered enterprise.