NCAA buys NIT

[NT80]

NCAA purchases NIT for $56.5 million to end legal fight

By JIM O'CONNELL, Associated Press Writer

August 17, 2005

NEW YORK (AP) -- The NCAA purchased the rights to the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments as part of a settlement that ends a four-year legal fight between the two parties.

In the deal announced Wednesday, the NCAA will pay $56.5 million to the five New York City colleges that operate the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, the organization that has run the NIT since 1940.

Fordham University, Manhattan College, St. John's University, Wagner College and New York University will receive $40.5 million for the rights to tournaments and $16 million in litigation fees over a 10-year period.

NCAA president Myles Brand said the tournaments will continue to be played in Madison Garden for at least the next five years and ESPN will continue to televise both tournaments.

A civil trial in which the NIT had claimed that the NCAA was trying to put it out of business began two weeks ago in federal court.

On Tuesday, a jury that had been listening to NIT witnesses and evidence in Manhattan was sent home for the day by U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum after lawyers said a deal had been struck to end the dispute.

NIT lawyer Jeffrey Kessler has argued that the NCAA ``deliberately set out to get a monopoly, to eliminate competition, to make it impossible to compete.''

He argued that a long-standing NCAA rule requiring schools to accept invitations to its tournament over invitations to all others had severely damaged the NIT, which began its postseason tournament in 1938 -- one year before the NCAA tournament started.

NCAA lawyer Gregory L. Curtner told the jury that the NCAA was made up of 1,024 schools, including the schools that sponsor the NIT tournament.

He said the rule requiring member schools to accept an NCAA tournament invitation over all others ``has never had any impact in fact in the real world up to the present time. Zero, none.''

Curtner said the rule was left in place to prevent teams from abandoning tournament play and joining made-for-television specials for more money.

[CMJ]

It's kind of sad, since the NIT was just as prestigious as the NCAA for years, and even into the late 70's/early 80's was a big deal. But since the NCAA went to 64 schools, the old tourney has been slowly dying.

Unfortuntately I think this means within 10 years there will be no more postseason NIT. I do think the preseason one will stick around.

Edited August 18, 2005 by CMJ