All but one of Fox's Division I partners are represented in the College Basketball Crown. Could the Mountain West's snub create a divide between them and Fox?
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The College Basketball Crown saved the best for last on Monday. The made-for-TV invitational was the last of the three Division I men’s basketball postseason tournaments to reveal its bracket. Fox included schools from three of its four Division I TV partners. The Big 12 got three invites, the Big Ten two, and the Big East one. Unlike last year, the College Basketball Crown left the Mountain West out.
The Crown arguably did what was best for them by inviting two of the strongest teams outside the NCAA Tournament and NIT: 19-15 Oklahoma, one of the first four out, and 20-12 Stanford. Both schools are in conferences without any broadcast affiliation to Fox.
Is the selection of two schools with no ties to Fox a big deal? Maybe not.
Is there a reason the Mountain West could be agitated? Sure.
The College Basketball Crown is the butt of many jokes about the men’s basketball postseason. The tournament overpromised and underdelivered in its first year, failing to attract many of the biggest high-major brands outside of the NCAA Tournament. The Crown instead settled for longtime Big East doormat, 14-19 Depaul, and American Conference also-ran, 19-14 Tulane, which had not seen as much as an NIT appearance since 2000.
The tournament read the room and downsized to eight for the 2026 edition, like its predecessor, the Vegas 16. With eight fewer slots, the Crown left the Mountain West on the outside looking in.
It may not be a big deal after all, but the Mountain West deserved better from Fox. The conference once again signed with Fox Sports, continuing a partnership that began in 2020. Fox airs 12 football games and 20 basketball games yearly, giving the network valuable West Coast inventory. Furthermore, the Mountain West Football Championship Game is a lucrative event for Fox. The game won the ratings battle over ABC’s American Conference Championship Game in 2024 on the first Friday of December.
Fox may have intended to give the Mountain West a spot in the College Basketball Crown, but opt-outs forced them to look elsewhere. 22-11 San Diego State, 20-12 Grand Canyon, and 20-12 Boise State all opted out of the postseason after not receiving an NCAA Tournament bid. With five Mountain West schools receiving bids from the NIT, the options were slim.
The College Basketball Crown’s options from the Mountain West were 13-19 Fresno State, 9-24 San Jose State, and 3-29 Air Force. Inviting any of these schools would hurt the already low credibility of the College Basketball Crown. Then again, the College Basketball Crown still features three schools with losing records, including 14-19 Rutgers. One more losing team from a Fox broadcast partner would not do too much harm.
One could hardly blame the College Basketball Crown for excluding the Mountain West, but it could create a divide. If this becomes a repeated occurrence, the Mountain West could sell its secondary package of games to ESPN in 2032. ESPN has struggled to fill post-10 PM ET slots since the PAC-12’s mass exodus.
Since 2024, ESPN has had four Saturdays on which it did not air a game that kicked off after 10 PM on its family of networks. This is in conjunction with many Saturdays that lacked a post-10 PM game on ESPN2 or ESPNU. The Mountain West could easily fill those slots.
The College Basketball Crown is a small offense for now. Yet, it establishes a clear pecking order with Fox and its collegiate properties, one that puts the Mountain West at the bottom, even below the non-football Big East. If this becomes a repeated occurrence, it could provide enough fuel for the Mountain West to take its secondary package to ESPN or The CW.
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