Every year it seems a different sport decides to expand its playoffs by inviting more teams or lengthening “best-of” series.

After the NCAA crowns its basketball champion Monday in New Orleans, we soon will be bombarded with the stretch run for the final spots in the professional hockey and basketball playoffs.

For many years the National Hockey League’s format of allowing 16 of 21 teams to enter the postseason was the laughingstock of pro sports.

In retrospect, it seems the NHL was light years ahead of its time.

Two seasons ago the National Basketball Association went from 12 to 16 teams in the playoffs, matching the NHL for tops in pro sports playoff representation.

The National Football League hasn’t reached the level of the aforementioned two yet, but it also has been broadening its playoff horizons. NFL owners decided one wild-card team in each conference wasn’t enough, so they opted to let two more teams into the Super Bowl Tournament.

Major league baseball has been the most consistent in limiting the invitations it extends at playoff time, allowing only players on the divisional champions to be eligible for postseason checks. But even MLB extended its League Championship Series to a best-of-seven in 1985.

We all know the reason for this trend. All together now—MONEY!

More teams competing means more fans paying to watch. And the more games played means more times those fans have to go through the turnstiles.

Unfortunately, professional sports don’t have a patent on greed.

The number of college football bowl games seems to increase on an annual basis, and the NCAA basketball tournament doubled from 32 to 64 teams in a short span of time. With the 13 20-game winners excluded from this year’s field, we surely can expect another expansion in the near future.

Sports are supposed to let us watch the best battle it out for the top prize, not let us watch solid, consistent teams get knocked off by teams that get hot late in the season. Or maybe this is an extension of the American dream like North Carolina State Coach Jim Valvano would like us to believe.

If the best team always won there would be no need for playoffs, but this is ridiculous.

Although fans of Providence and Syracuse would disagree, the average fan has been cheated at this year’s tournament. Nowhere near the number of people will be watching the Final Four, or at least not as intently, as if North Carolina and Georgetown had advanced.

May the luckiest team win.