NCAA buys NIT tournaments

Contributed by: filbert Thursday, August 18 2005 @ 08:27 AM CST

The NIT’s lawsuit against the NCAA was resolved out of court with the NCAA paying $56.5 million to acquire the NIT[*1] .

At issue in the trial was an NCAA rule that required teams to attend its postseason tournaments, and no others, if invited. The NIT had called for an open market.Wednesday’s action essentially closed that market. But it raised several new questions, including the motivations of both sides, how teams will be selected for the tournaments and the NCAA’s intentions for the NIT.

What does the NCAA do with the NIT? The linked article states that the NCAA makes 90% of their money off of the Division I men’s basketball tournament–far too concentrated. Maybe they’ll turn the NIT into a consolation tournament, expanding the tournament field to 96 or 128, and taking all of the first round losers of the NCAA tournament or something like that. I guess we’ll see.