Beech Tree News Network

Last week, I gave some background on the origins of the NCAA tournament.  It’s only fair that I give equal time to the NIT.  Coincidentally, I’m watching Western Kentucky play in the first semifinal as I type this.  The NIT was founded in 1938 by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Writers Association, one year after the NAIA tournament was created by basketball’s inventor Dr. James Naismith, and one year before the NCAA tournament.  The first NIT was won by the Temple Owls over the Colorado Buffaloes.

In it’s early years, the NIT offered some advantages over the NCAA Tournament.  There was limited national media coverage of college basketball in the 1930’s and ‘40’s, and playing in New York City provided teams with greater exposure, both with the general public and high school prospects.  The NCAA selection committee only invited one team each from eight national regions, potentially leaving better quality selections and natural rivals out, and they would opt for the NIT.  Some conferences, like the SEC, were racially segregated.  This made hosting non-segregated early round events on their campuses problematic.

As the NCAA over time expanded its field to include more teams, the reputation of the NIT suffered. In 1973, NBC moved televised coverage of the NCAA championship from Saturday afternoon to Monday evening,[40] providing the NCAA Tournament with prime-time television exposure the NIT could not match. Even more crucially, when the NCAA eliminated the one-team-per-conference rule in 1975, its requirement that teams accept its bids relegated the NIT to a collection of teams that did not make the NCAA grade.

Compounding this, to cut costs the NIT moved its early rounds out of Madison Square Garden in 1977, playing games at home sites until the later rounds. This further harmed the NIT's prestige, both regionalizing interest in it and marginalizing it by reducing its association with Madison Square Garden.[40] By the mid-1980s, its transition to a secondary tournament for lesser teams was complete.

In 2005, the NCAA purchased 10-year rights to the NIT from the MIBA for $56.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit, which had gone to trial and was being argued until very shortly before the settlement was announced. The MIBA alleged that compelling teams to accept invitations to the NCAA tournament even if they preferred to play in the NIT was an illegal use of the NCAA's powers. In addition, it argued that the NCAA's expansion of its tournament to 65 teams (68 since 2011) was designed specifically to bankrupt the NIT. Faced with the very real possibility of being found in violation of federal antitrust law for the third time in its history, the NCAA chose to settle. (The first two violations were related to restrictions on televising college football and capping assistant coach salaries.) As part of the purchase of the NIT by the NCAA, the MIBA disbanded. TCU defeated Georgia Tech for the title last year.  Hopefully WKU can get it done this year.  GO TOPS!!