"NCAA gets a $56.5 million bargain" vol8, issue 19, p28 (by Daniel Benjamin)

The NCAA pays out $16 million to the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (consisting of Fordham, Manhattan, St. Johns, Wagner and New York University) to settle an antitrust lawsuit. There's headline news!! It seems like every other day the NCAA is faced with litigation, as a result of bad managerial decisions, whether it is for trying to bully member schools;in regards to dumb eligibility rules;or restricting the earnings of Division I assistant basketball coaches. By settling the lawsuit it appears that the NCAA dodged a bullet beause according to the article, damage awards in antitrust cases are tripled and now the NCAA doesn't have to face questions regarding the legal reasoning behind losing a court case. With that being the case it is unfortunate that the MIBA settled because I would've liked to have seen the NCAA take a huge financial and legal hit. Maybe then the NCAA would realize their organization is fundamentally flawed and needs to be completely overhauled (since the NCAA is a "me" organization caring only about the bottom line, I doubt this realization will ever happen).
The need for the overhauling of the orgainization is verified in the article by stating that the NCAA changes its position of the type of organization it is depending on the lawsuit brought against them.
The first step in restructuring the NCAA would be to replace Myles Brand as president (along with other former/current university presidents' in the organization) with "sports people".

In addition to settling the lawsuit the NCAA purchased the National Invitional Tournament (NIT) from the MIBA for $40.5 million and now owns a monopoly on college basketball tournaments. Personnally, I don't care that the NCAA owns the NIT except for the fact that they might eliminate both the pre-season and post-season tournaments. Eliminating the pre-season NIT would be a major mistake because it is the staple of the pre-season basketball tournaments as it generally "tips-off" the basketball season. In addition the pre-season NIT generally showcases the best non-conference match-ups although the competition has weakened recently (in the tournament) due to regulations of team participation in pre-season tournaments. Although I don't want to see the post-season tournament eliminated either, I don't believe many people would notice (the post-season NIT is comparable to the football bowl games except for the so-called football national championship game). The post-season NIT does have its benefits for teams (as does the bowl season), for example, letting deserving teams that are left out of "March Madness" a chance to continue their season. If the post-season NIT does continue it needs to revamp the selection process of its teams by eliminating ESPN's input from the equation.