Fox, AEG Start New Postseason Basketball Tournament to Compete With NIT
Just what we all wanted! A postseason basketball tournament for the also-rans who didn't make the NCAA! From the story:
"The College Basketball Crown will be a 16-team tournament taking place March 31 through April 6, 2025, in Las Vegas. The games will be played at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and T-Mobile Arena. Both venues have hosted college basketball games in the past, including the Pac-12 tournaments.
"Teams that do not qualify for the NCAA tournament will be eligible. The Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East -- whose games are carried on Fox -- will each have two automatic entries. The other teams will be selected by a committee."
Gotta make more room for Michigan State to get an NCAA bid.
uhm... seems like an odd flex or rather silly way to insult our rivals when we didn't make the tournament and they at least won a game... but you go on...
Finding silly ways to insult our rivals is one of my favorite things about this blog.
Welcome to the blog, Tom Izzo.
Tom told everyone what he thinks about "the little guys" of college basketball.
https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/izzo-says-ncaa-tournament-should-be-about-money-not-players-or-teams
They're just going to expand the parameters of what counts to extend the "streak" forever. It ended when they didn't make the field of 64 if you ask me.
They should just play this and the NIT in one day ala Gus Macker and both tournament champions get an at large bid for NCAA tourney. Also, since it's the last game of the year, the refs are advised only call major fouls and just let it get a little crazy.
This makes SO much sense… not.
I guess it’s obviously about the Benjamins.
Yeah, the only time I ever watch the NIT is when UofM is in it, and I'm sure that holds true for most college basketball viewers for their respective teams as well, unless they're serious gamblers/college basketball sickos, but it still keeps going so it must make some form of profit.
Fox somehow thinks they can get into the market, so they must think there's enough demand. This is also on top of there being an rumblings that the NCAA wants to expand the tournament even more.
N (nobody's)
I (interested)
T ( tournament)
The NIT is also good for showing how asinine the NCAA is for leaving teams like Seton Hall and Indiana State out in favor of teams like Virginia.
Yesterday morning I heard some radio guys talking about how well Indiana St was playing, and I briefly thought to myself - when did ISU get back into Final Four? I mean, they haven't been relevant since Larry Bird was a teenager!
And then I remembered about the NIT.
But yeah, tell me again why UVA was in the NCAA tournament. As a 10-seed, no less!
Just what we needed. Another post-season basketball tournament that no one really cares about like the CBI and NIT
Just what we needed. Another selection committee.
Odd for conferences to get auto-bids simply because of their TV network contracts. Seems a good way to make more than half of the cbb field not care about the event.
No, it isn’t odd, it’s about the ridiculously large alumni bases in Fox’s stable, Las Vegas, and eyeballs (even if it’s only alumni-adjacent).
the ease of content distribution makes this kind of gong show profitable.
To make the tournament go faster, they should have Juicy Jaye P Morgan at courtside with a gong to end bad games.
I'm not sure if this is a worse idea than the tournament itself.
Ha! You think Michigan would have been gong'ed off the court this season?
I do...
It’s in Vegas so I’m in!
Whatever happens in this tournament, stays in this tournament!
... and on YouTube.
Like I said…
Just What I Needed -The Cars
Hey, if I'm on a bubble team and I'm looking at spending one night in Dayton as a 10-seed or a week in Vegas, I'm losing my last few games.
This tournament only exists to boost sports betting.
This sucks as a format.
One of the smart things the NIT does is give home games to the better seed; that gives the games some atmosphere and (if you're local) another chance to see your team.
This is yet another event in Las Vegas -- are fans really going to travel, mid-week in March, to watch Seton Hall play a Round of 16 game? No. So it will be basketball in front of a most empty arena. MGM Grand has 17,000 seats! Unless Kentucky somehow falls into this tourney, building will be 1/3 full, at best.
I watched the Indiana State - Utah game yesterday. It was fun, entertaining basketball helped by the fact that ISU fans were into it. Too bad that might go away.
Free tickets and beer!
Sounds good. Weird to me when people rip on stuff like this. Like people who whine that there are too many football bowl games at the end of the year, and some team or another doesn't "deserve" to play. As if only the best of the best should be allowed to play exhibition games.
Don't want to watch? Don't watch! Who cares? But if your team is playing, and you enjoy watching them ... what's the harm? Why ... I mean, why do we follow college sports anyway?
Like, I don't understand why Indiana, this year, among others, decided not to play in the NIT. What's that? Weird ... pride? They have better things to do? Why not get some extra practices in, let the fans watch you a little bit, and maybe even improve a bit heading into next season. What's the harm? You're a basketball team ... and now you're too busy to play basketball? Gimme a break.
Eh. Seems fine to me.
I am not a total NIT hater. It has a lot of history and particularly for good mid-majors that get upset in their conference tournament I think it's great. What Indiana State is doing, for instance, is awesome. The sub-NIT tournaments are all obviously preposterous, but this one in particular by reserving spots for the dregs of the power conferences. In a world where those teams have started turning down even the NIT, though, why does this tournament think they would attend? They must plan to blast some serious money.
I certainly won't watch unless Michigan makes it to the semis or something, but it sounds like fun and I bet players will enjoy it. Hopefully it gets them some more money.
Awesome, a tournament nobody was asking for that nobody will watch.
Seventeen teams turned down bids to this season's NIT. LINK Almost all of them were from major conferences and several of them had won 20 or more games this season. The two NIT finalists, champion Seton Hall and runner-up Indiana State were among the first four teams that missed bids to the NCAA Tournament.
How many of those teams would have accepted a bid to play in a 16-team tournament played in Las Vegas if the travel and hotel costs weren't being paid for by the tournament sponsors or their own conferences?
And why isn’t this called The Big Crown Tournament? Or add a sponsor so it’s The Big Royal Crown?