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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Law - Settlement ends NIT v. NCAA lawsuit

The Indianapolis Star website is reporting here this afternoon, in a story by Mark Alesia:

NEW YORK — The NCAA will buy the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments for $40.5 million and pay another $16 million to the NIT to end the federal antitrust lawsuit against the Indianapolis-based organization, the two sides announced today.

The total of $56.5 million will be paid over a 10-year period.

“This is an historic day for men’s college basketball,” NCAA president Myles Brand said in a statement before a press conference announcing the deal at Madison Square Garden. “The agreement provides the NCAA with an opportunity to better define the college basketball season and to build on the status of the two NIT events. We intend to grow these tournaments to showcase college basketball and the student-athletes who make the game great.”

The NCAA will take over the tournaments starting this fall, and ESPN will continue to broadcast the NIT events. The finals for both will continue to be held in the New York City area for the next five years.

Other details, including whether the sizes of the fields for the NCAA and NIT tournaments will change or how the NIT teams will be selected, were still being worked out, Brand said.

[6:00 p.m. update] The ironic twist. This morning's NY Times sports section contained a brief story (apparently not available online) written before the terms of the settlement were announced. It concluded:
During the trial, jurors saw videotaped testimony from Texas Tech Coach Bobby Knight, who said the NCAA had created a monopoly.

"I have felt as long as I have been in coaching that the NCAA has wanted to eliminate the NIT," he said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 17, 2005 04:35 PM
Posted to General Law Related