NIT, NCAA prepare for court battle

[Greenhead22]

August 1, 2005

NIT, NCAA prepare for court battle

From wire reports

The NCAA will be in court today for the start of an antitrust trial that strikes at the heart of one of the nation's most popular sports events, the Division I men's basketball tournament. Worst-case scenario for the NCAA: The case could deal a major blow to the organization.

In U.S. District Court in New York, the National Invitation Tournament is challenging the NCAA's requirement that teams attend its championships if invited. The NIT, a once-prominent postseason basketball tournament now greatly overshadowed by the concurrent NCAA event, contends teams should have a choice. That could open the postseason to entrepreneurs or prompt the top schools to organize themselves, as in football.

Even a less extreme outcome could devalue the NCAA's cash cow, a tournament that accounts for at least 90 percent of its revenue. Should the NCAA be found to have intentionally harmed the NIT through an illegal monopoly, there's also the possibility of a large financial judgment, which is tripled in antitrust cases.

The trial is expected to last a month. Texas Tech coach Bob Knight will testify for the NIT by video. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is on the NCAA's witness list.

"The potential here is significant," said Gary Roberts, a sports law expert from Tulane University. "The NCAA is at some risk."

The NCAA says member schools were within their legal rights to create the rule at issue, and that it wasn't intended to harm the NIT. Further, it says consumers benefit from a single national championship and that the statute of limitations has run out anyway. The rule was formed in 1982.

"The NCAA has to feel pretty confident legally," said Paul Haagen, a sports law expert from Duke. "If the NIT is right, they're just incredibly vulnerable."

Roberts said: "It appears to the average person as a silly issue because nobody wants to play in the NIT. But that wasn't always the case. The NIT's argument is that this is the way it is because of that rule."

The NIT — started in 1938, which is a year earlier than the NCAA tournament — is run by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, comprising five New York City schools: St. John's, Fordham, Manhattan, Wagner and New York University.

Until the expansion of the NCAA tournament field in the 1970s, the NIT regularly had attractive teams available to it.

In 1970, Marquette coach Al McGuire, upset with his team's seed in the NCAA tournament, pulled out and went to the NIT. The NIT's complaint alleges McGuire's decision prompted the start of illegal, anti-competitive behavior by the NCAA, including the "commitment to participate" rule.

NCAA vice president David Berst said the rule is needed because smaller NCAA sports such as crew and lacrosse might have teams opt to compete somewhere other than the NCAA championship.

"There are other sports that don't have what we've created here (with basketball)," Berst said.

According to the NIT's complaint, the NCAA tournament's gradual increase from 25 teams in 1974 to 64 teams in 1985 almost caused the NIT to go out of business. Only the advent of the popular Preseason NIT saved the postseason NIT.

In 1999, the NCAA signed its current $6.2 billion, 11-year contract with CBS for TV and marketing rights to the tournament.

NIT attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who declined comment for this story, has represented the players associations of all the major sports and won at least three cases against the NFL. That includes "McNeil v. NFL," the 1991 case that opened the door to the league's current free-agency system.

There are other factors that might make the NCAA uneasy. Kessler will be representing the New York-based NIT to a New York jury grappling with issues that are complicated for experts.

"Antitrust is always difficult, and it's even more difficult when it's applied to sports," said Rick Karcher, director of the Center for Law and Sports at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville. "It's totally different than if you're talking about the sale of widgets... ."