This morning, “multiple sources” leaked—via Seth Davis at the Messenger—that Fox Sports is trying to create a competitor tournament to the NIT. It would only include FOX conferences—the Big 12*, Big East, and Big Ten, per Davis’s report—and it would be a 16-team event held in Las Vegas, with invitations decided by NET rating and teams required by their conferences to reject any NIT invitations. The ACC and SEC would not be involved (this is all according to the report). As with a lot of things, the Pac-12’s situation is unclear.
*The Big 12 has some FOX inventory in the new deal.
The reported proposal is riddled with problems.
Last year, only 15 teams from those three conferences would have even been available for this hypothetical tournament, meaning not only would a Georgetown team with a 7–25 overall record have been contractually required to play, but Fox Sports would have then had to go find a 16th team. The Big 12 is adding four teams this year, but there’s no guarantee there will be 16 teams available if this tournament does happen. Regardless, the field would stink. It would be much worse than the NIT field. Again, using last year as a proxy, one third of the field would be of NIT quality and the other two thirds would be worse. In some cases, much worse.
The proposal relies on a vague promise of NIL money: “If the tournament happens, Fox plans to encourage its corporate partners to set up Name, Image and Likeness deals for players who are competing.” The idea here is that schools are worried players would refuse to play, which is a legitimate concern. The problem is that Fox “encouraging” its buddies to pay the players isn’t exactly guaranteed cash.
A conference source either disingenuously or ignorantly* highlighted that this would create more spots for mid-majors in the NIT. It would do that. It would also turn one event that’s doing fine but not exactly thriving—talking about the NIT here—into two events, each of which would be weaker than the previous event.
*I’m betting on this being ignorance, and I don’t mean that as an insult—I just don’t think a lot of people understand where the NIT cut lines fall.
Davis says that “one of the appeals of the Fox tournament is that it would take place in one city,” which is odd, because in our experience, covering the NIT for the last six years, home games have been one of the highlights. Wisconsin drew ten thousand people for a second-round NIT game this March. That was four or five times as many people as attended the NIT semifinals, combined, in Las Vegas, where this proposed Fox tournament would take place. Attendance for the Fox tournament would be very, very bad. Las Vegas is a long way away from all but one school in the Big 12, Big Ten, and Big East.
Fox’s motivation here is that there’s a lot of demand to watch college basketball in March beyond the conference tournaments, and Fox has no basketball to broadcast beyond the conference tournaments. My understanding is that the NIT has been included in the NCAA’s large postseason media rights package, the one ESPN currently owns but will be open for bidding next summer. Ideally, Fox is trying to pressure the NCAA to split that package up a little more—it seems Fox would love to broadcast the NIT, if they’re this excited about creating a tournament with significantly worse competition than the NIT and more depressed fanbases. It’s possible, though, that this tournament will happen. If it does, and if it happens this year, it’ll be a shame. The 2024 NIT Final Four is being hosted in Indianapolis, at Hinkle Fieldhouse, within a two-hour drive of at least one team in each of the Big Ten, Big East, and Big 12. It’s setting up to be the best-attended, best-atmosphered NIT Final Four in years, but it’s going to be much better if the Big Ten or Big East or Big 12 can get a semi-local team or two to qualify.
In short, if this happens? It’s going to stink. It’s going to get panned. People are going to see the real product and hate it. They’ll watch, college basketball fans are great, but interest is going to be low, and NIT interest is going to be lower alongside it. All of this would conspire to make a worse experience for athletes, a worse experience for fans, a worse experience for coaches, and a little money for Fox Sports until the thing flops, at which point it’d be a sad anecdote on the résumé of Fox Sports executive vice president Jordan Bazant, the man allegedly pulling the strings here. Would people remember Bazant was the one who did this? Yes. I can promise you that.
