The University of Alaska Fairbanks has canceled this year's BP Top of the World Classic. School officials cited recent changes in NCAA rules governing college basketball tournaments and “the resulting bidding wars taking place between events” as reason for the cancelation.

“The decision to cancel this year's tournament was not of our making or of our choice,” said Brian Hove, tournament director. “The escalation in appearance fees precipitated by the 2006 NCAA rule change has effectively priced the Classic out of the market.”

Before 2006, there were only 10 certified preseason basketball tournaments in the country, including the Classic and the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Great Alaska Shootout. The NCAA membership, though, approved a rule change in 2006 that allowed any institution to host a multiple-team event.

There were 45 such tournaments in 2007, with more planned at schools all over the country this year, said Alaska Fairbanks AD Forrest Karr, which has changed how much schools are being paid to participate in tournaments.

“We have worked diligently to sell teams on the Alaskan experience, but the landscape has changed,” said Karr. “It is now nearly impossible to find a school that will travel to Fairbanks when they can take a bus ride to a neighboring university and receive a game guarantee of $100,000, or more in some cases.

“Many people reviewed the current climate and, unfortunately, nobody can justify spending university general fund money or student fee dollars to entice seven Division I schools to participate in a tournament,” he said. “The Classic has been self-sustaining and we felt it needed to continue operating on a fiscally responsible basis.”

By November 2006, tournament organizers had signed Stanford, Morehead State and Chattanooga for the 2008 event. Within the last three months, though, the latter two had dropped out, paying a $30,000 buyout fee in favor of participating in higher-paying events closer to home.

In the meantime, Alaska Fairbanks secured commitments from Bradley, UCF and Austin Peay, leaving the university three teams shy of completing the eight-team field.

Karr said the school tried to find just one more team for a six-team tournament, with the university fully committed to allocating extra funds toward the endeavor.

“We set July 1 as the cutoff date and felt that if we could not secure a sixth team by then, we had no choice but to let the teams currently under contract pursue other options,” he said.

Karr said that the university is focused now on discussing options with the community organizing committee, sponsors and staff to potentially develop a new format that will allow the university and the city to have a basketball tournament beginning again in 2009.