Men’s college basketball’s newest postseason tournament is just a week away.
The College Basketball Crown — a joint venture between Fox Sports and AEG — begins Monday in Las Vegas with eyes on finding a foothold in a space the NIT (an ESPN product) has long dominated.
“For college basketball, what’s crazy is for all the revenue it generates, a lot of these student athletes don’t get that big bowl-game experience that college football [and] their colleagues in other sports do,” Fox Sports EVP Jordan Bazant told me. “There are some amazing bowl games not in the CFP that provide these student athletes with amazing experiences, once-in-a-lifetime experiences — and we want to bring that to people in college basketball.”
The Crown will feature 16 teams from outside the NCAA men’s tournament field — two automatic qualifiers from the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 (all of which have varying league media rights deals with Fox) and 10 at-large bids.
AEG and Fox are also covering operating costs for participating teams, while a sponsor roster of brands such as Ghost Energy, Mercury Insurance and Valvoline Global are contributing to the event experience.
There’s also the added intrigue of an NIL prize for teams that make the last four. As I reported on Tuesday morning, Vivid Seats unveiled an ambassador program in which $500,000 in NIL packages will be split between those squads — $300,000 for first, $100,000 for second and $50,000 each for the third- and fourth-place teams — and include varying marketing campaigns, such as social media activations and more.
“What is important here is that we’re seeing the goals of multiple parties achieved and this tournament is enhancing college basketball for student athletes, for fans and for brands,” said Nick Baker, AEG’s president and COO/global partnerships, whose company sold sponsorships for the event.
What’s the goal?
The Crown is a chance for Fox to provide a place for Power Five programs that were left out of the field of 68 (beyond the NIT).
This year’s Crown has its share of high-major flavor with USC, Georgetown, Arizona State and Nebraska among those competing, albeit there’s also something to be said for the squads that aren’t involved.
Take Boise State, the only program of the first four teams left out of the NCAA Tournament to accept an invite to the Crown (Indiana, West Virginia and Ohio State ended their seasons for varying reasons).
More pressing, the transfer portal opened on Monday. With college basketball as transient as it’s ever been, schools that might’ve made sense for the Crown may not even be in a position to field a team in six days.
Baker acknowledged the portal is a dimension that organizers anticipated. The hope, however, is the transfer period will eventually move to a date after the national title game and, in turn, make more schools realistic targets.
“The portal date is a real challenge for everyone, and I look forward to that date being changed for the betterment of the sport and for the student athletes and the universities,” Baker said. “… We’d all agree that having that date pushed back makes a lot of sense.”
What does success look like in Year 1?
Consider the NIT — despite lingering questions about its long-term feasibility — a good barometer for the Crown.
The NIT final has averaged 417,000 viewers over the past three years on ESPN. If the Crown can hit somewhere around those numbers, organizers may have staying power in Sin City.
“You always want better ratings, but the No. 1 thing is, ‘How do we provide exposure for the league and the teams to bring in more sponsors?’” Bazant said. “Because then you have more arms to grow the sport. You have more champions.
“… We’re hoping that NCAA and all those other partners, even some of the event promoters, look at us and say, ‘Wow, these guys are great partners. Look what they’ve done. How can we continue to help them?’”
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