Pour one out for the NIT.
The storied college basketball tournament has officially become a shell of its former self with the addition of Fox’s new postseason hoops event, the College Basketball Crown. It’s a sad day for those who appreciate the NIT’s rich history, or simply enjoyed having a secondary competition to coincide with the NCAA Tournament where all the best of the rest were playing.
Now, the tournament’s been gutted.
A few hours after the field of 68 was announced last night, the NIT revealed its 32-team bracket. Now, the tournament has battled numerous high profile opt-outs in recent years, but has still been able to court a respectable group of teams filled with power-conference schools above .500 and mid-major schools who won their conference’s regular season but failed to take care of business in their conference tournament. This year, the field looks much different.
Just four power-conference schools are in this year’s NIT; three from the ACC and one from the Big 12. One of those schools, Oklahoma State, did not even finish the season above .500. Another, Georgia Tech, barely did at 17-16.
Last season, the NIT fielded 18 power-conference schools, and that’s after 15 other power-conference schools opted out of the tournament. It’s unlikely all 15 of those teams would’ve even been selected for the NIT, but the contrast between last year’s field and this year’s is stark. The NIT is officially a mid-major tournament.
Why is this? Well, Fox saw an opportunity. The network is actively involved in college basketball throughout the regular season, owning exclusive rights to the Big Ten and Big East while also airing a package of Big 12 and Mountain West games. As it turns out, you can put together a pretty strong “best of the rest” competition with teams primarily from those conferences. And in today’s day and age in college sports, if one of your television partners tells you to jump, you ask, “how high?”
That’s a shame. Not because the College Basketball Crown won’t be a fun and entertaining competition, it likely will. But because the NIT, as much as it had become the butt of many jokes in recent years, has pedigree. Up until the 1950s, the NIT was the most prestigious postseason college basketball tournament in the land. Even as recently as 1970, teams actually declined invitations to the NCAA Tournament to play in the NIT.
We’re 50-odd years removed from those days, but that history is meaningful. Now, we’re stuck with a competition that is corporatized and soulless, just so a TV network can make a few extra bucks.
But aside from the history that’s being lost with the newly-gutted NIT, it’s simply not an ideal setup for fans. Prior to the College Basketball Crown, fans could watch all of the best non-NCAA Tournament teams in one competition. The winner of the NIT had a claim to being the best team outside the field of 68. Now, with teams divided between two competitions, both tournaments are diluted and neither champion will have a legitimate claim to the title of best non-NCAA Tournament team.
This is the reality of modern college sports. If there’s an opportunity to make a little extra coin, it’ll be taken, tradition be damned.
And who can blame Fox? Despite being one of the sport’s major players during the regular season, they have no postseason inventory. CBS and TNT Sports have rights to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. ESPN airs the NCAA women’s basketball tournament and the NIT. But Fox had nothing.
The College Basketball Crown gives them something. Even if that something is a competition where teams are picked primarily based on what conference they’re affiliated with, rather than the merit-based selections the NIT had.
It doesn’t feel pure. Nothing about college sports feels pure anymore. But just like the many bowl games featuring 6-6 college football teams, people will watch the College Basketball Crown. The more basketball the merrier. And given the College Basketball Crown’s strategic scheduling towards the end of the NCAA Tournament — the first game isn’t even played until after the Elite Eight is finished — the tournament is giving fans more of what they want at a time where they didn’t originally have it.
Not everyone will love it, especially college hoops traditionalists. But it’s difficult to say that the College Basketball Crown is anything aside from a smart business venture by Fox. And the viewership figures will likely back that up.
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