Current season, competition or edition:![]() | |
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Sport | College basketball |
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Founded | 2024 |
Founder | Fox Sports AEG Global Partnerships |
First season | 2025 |
No. of teams | 16 |
Country | United States |
Venue(s) | MGM Grand Garden Arena T-Mobile Arena |
TV partner(s) | Fox, FS1 |
Related competitions | NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament |
The College Basketball Crown is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by Fox Sports and AEG Global Partnerships. The inaugural tournament will be held in 2025, on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.[1]
Selection process
Two automatic qualifiers from each of the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 conferences as well as ten at-large teams will be selected from the pool of teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament.[1] Although the official announcement of the launching of the tournament provided no details regarding selection criteria,[2] a September 2023 proposal for the tournament indicated that NET rankings would be used to select teams, which, at the time, were expected to include only Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 squads. Further, the proposal indicated that teams selected from those three conferences would be required to participate in the College Basketball Crown, which would make it impossible for them to also participate in the National Invitation Tournament, should they be selected or receive an automatic bid.[3] Note that, while the NCAA does not allow schools invited to an NCAA championship tournament to decline and then compete in another postseason event, currently this rule does not apply to the Men's NIT, even though it is run by the NCAA.
References
- ^ a b "Fox Sports & AEG Launch the College Basketball Crown: A Reimagined Postseason College Hoops Tournament". Fox Sports. April 3, 2024. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
- ^ Clinkscales, Jason. "Fox Sports, AEG Launching 'College Basketball Crown' Tournament". Sportico. Retrieved May 31, 2024.
- ^ Davis, Seth (September 11, 2023). "Fox Sports in Negotiations to Hold a New Men's College Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas in Late March (Exclusive)". The Messenger. Archived from the original on October 12, 2023. Retrieved May 31, 2024.