Calling it "a victory without defeat," New York University President John Sexton joined with NCAA President Myles Brand in announcing that the NCAA and the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA) have agreed to terms under which the NCAA will purchase the rights to and operate the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments, effective immediately.

Terms of the $56.5 million agreement both transfer the ownership of the tournaments ($40.5 million) and end litigation ($16 million) that had been ongoing for four years. The combined amounts will be paid over a 10-year period through NCAA reserves, insurance and other existing sources. Over time, revenues from an improved NIT tournament also will provide resources. Funds earmarked for membership distribution will not be used in the agreement.

The August 17 announcement at New York City's Madison Square Garden, site of the postseason NIT finals since the tournament's inception in 1938, ends litigation that had been interpreted initially as confrontational but in the end was amicably settled.

"People sometimes misread the intentions of all the actors in a drama," Sexton said at the news conference. "Are there some who would read the relationship over the years between the NCAA and NIT as a relationship counter-pointed to what we did today? My guess is that there would be. But even counter-pointed relationships can turn on a dime and become wonderful. The counter-pointal appearance early on in this case wasn't necessarily the reality. Today we celebrate the fact that there is a tremendous mutuality of interest."

New York University, along with Fordham University, Manhattan College, Wagner College and St. John's University (New York), the schools that compose MIBA, sued the NCAA in 2001, claiming antitrust violations with regard to the Association's Division I Men's Basketball Championship. MIBA claimed that NCAA Bylaw 31.2.1.1., which permits a member institution to decline an NCAA invitation to participate in an NCAA championship but also provides that a team that does so cannot then participate in any postseason play that year, violates antitrust law and has illegally injured the NIT.

Trial had begun August 1 in New York City and was expected to continue to the end of the month, but jurors were dismissed August 16 when lawyers from both parties informed the judge that an agreement was near. The five MIBA schools will receive $1 million annually for the next nine years and an undisclosed equity share in the net income of the tournaments for the next 10 years.

Regarding any future risk of challenges on antitrust terms, NCAA President Brand said the NIT situation is unique because of the long history of the two tournaments. He said this action removed what he called a "not large, but not trivial, risk." Any future challenges to NCAA championships would come in a much different context, he said.

Sexton said the agreement reflected a clearer understanding from both parties as to the other's desires.

"A lot of work went in to be able to hear one another," said Sexton, who began his presidency at Division III-member New York University in 2001 after 13 years as dean of the NYU Law School. "There came a moment that both Myles and I began to see a framework that brought us to a point where there was a victory without defeat. That's how I describe what has happened. The idea that we could leave today with a stronger NIT is extraordinary. Once we could really hear each other, we could get to a place where are goals were congruent."

Brand agreed that the purchase makes for a stronger NIT.

"We've found a way to go forward. By bringing all the parties together and reasserting our membership for the betterment of the game, we formed a significant agreement," Brand said. "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."

Others praised the announcement as well. Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, told USA Today that the agreement was "great for college basketball." Dave Odom, head men's coach at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, winner of the 2005 postseason NIT, said in a USA Today story that the purchase represents what is best for college basketball at this time. "It ensures we will continue to have an undisputed national champion every year, and at same time be able to preserve the tradition and heritage of the storied NIT," he said.

Sexton said the NIT is a great asset to the game that only will be enhanced by NCAA ownership and administration. "We have nurtured the NIT through decades," he said. "It's time to bring it to a new level. With NCAA assets and administrative expertise behind it, we've taken a New York icon and given it a chance to be something better."

The NCAA will begin operating the events this fall, starting with the preseason NIT. ESPN will continue to broadcast the tournaments for at least the remaining years of its contract with the events, and finals of both the preseason and postseason tournaments will continue to be held in the New York City area for at least the next five years.

Other logistics still are to be determined through a comprehensive review of the operations of the NIT events that is expected to last several months, although certain procedural and operational elements are likely to be clarified within a few weeks, Brand did confirm, though, that a group other than the Division I Men's Basketball Committee will select teams for the postseason NIT.

Staffing requirements to operate the NIT tournaments are still to be determined. Also unknown is the agreement's effect on the "two-in-four rule," which prohibits Division I teams from participating in more than two exempted events (of which the preseason NIT is one) in a four-year period. Brand said the Division I Board of Directors may revisit that rule as early as the Board's October meeting.

The Women's NIT -- operated by Triple Crown Sports, which is not associated with MIBA or the NCAA -- is not part of the agreement.

Although the purchase of a competitive tournament by the NCAA is unprecedented, the Association has assumed ownership on at least one previous occasion of an outside organization.

In 1959, the NCAA Executive Committee authorized the Association's ownership of the National Collegiate Athletic Bureau, which had provided statistics-compilation services for the NCAA since 1940 from its office in New York City and also had published sports guides for the Association since 1950. The NCAA's current publishing and statistics operations have their origins in that action, which at the time added 10 employees to what was then a six-person staff.