Anyone from Arkansas to Arkansas-Pine Bluff could kick off March Madness next year.

The NCAA's expanded 68-team men's basketball tournament will include a four-game first round involving eight teams from all across the Division I spectrum. Two of those initial games will include the four lowest seeds in the field — but the other two will include the final at-large qualifiers.

The NCAA unveiled the new plan Monday. All four of the "First Four" games will be broadcast on Turner's truTV cable channel. The eight teams will play early in the first week, with the winners advancing to games on Thursday or Friday.

"I think some people are going to look at it and say it looks like a compromise," said Laing Kennedy, a retired Kent State athletic director who is on the men's basketball committee that developed the new format. "What we look at is that it really does preserve the integrity of the 31 automatic qualifiers."

The NCAA announced in April that it would add three teams to the field, the first expansion since the tournament went from 64 teams to 65 in 2001. For the last 10 years, the bottom two teams in the field were sent to an opening game before the round of 64.

That game would include teams from some of the weakest conferences, but the new format will offer a bit more variety. The NCAA decided against picking the lowest eight seeds for the new round. Two of the early games will match the tournament's lowest seeds, Nos. 65 through 68, with the winners advancing to play top seeds. The other two games will match the last four at-large qualifiers, meaning two teams from powerful conferences could play the tournament's first game.