NCAA SVP/Basketball Dan Gavitt has been instrumental in continuing to shape and grow the NCAA’s college basketball productStephen Lew/USA TODAY NETWORK
Dan Gavittis a busy man.
The NCAA’s SVP/Basketball is into his second decade in the role. Such a title and work means he can hardly take a step around the arena without a hand being extended his way in the days leading up to the men’s Final Four in Glendale, Ariz.
Gavitt, whose father Dave helped found the Big East almost 50 years ago, has been instrumental in continuing to shape and grow the NCAA’s college basketball product. Ahead of this week’s national title game between UConn and Purdue, he sat down with Sports Business Journal on Monday to discuss the week that was and the future of the enterprise.
Some answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length
Q: You’re now more than 10 years into this job. What’s that like to look back on?
Gavitt: "The change has been improvement year-over-year and over that decade the events have gotten bigger. They've gotten better in terms of student athlete experience and the fan experience. Pleased with that. Never resting on those laurels. We’ve got to keep making them better and better, but I like the trajectory and progress we've made."
Q: Viewership on the women’s side has obviously been a huge area of discussion, but the men’s side has rebounded there too. How do you assess those two things?
Gavitt: “It's so exciting and fulfilling to know that both events are thriving and working well together. For college basketball fans, it’s just an amazing month, right? There are some days that overlap, some windows that overlap, especially on weekends, but, generally, almost every day of the month of March and early April you’ve got incredible college basketball men's or women's going on. It’s great for fans, great for our schools and we have great partners. CBS and (Turner) and ESPN are incredible partners for both championships.”
Q: Speaking of growth, how much has come on the corporate sponsorship side of things?
Gavitt: “Quite a bit. Seeing the [addition] this year of Geico, who was previously part of the program coming back, and then Home Depot, [is] really substantial and significant, because we've got incredible long term partners that have been with us for, in some cases, a couple of decades. But to still be adding someone like a Home Depot that's so invested in college sports and college football, in particular, to see this as an opportunity at that scale that they already invest and support college sports is really exciting.”
Q: There’s been a lot of change and discussion about the women’s tournament the last few years, particularly the idea of merging the Final Fours together into a mega-event. Where do you fall in that discussion?
Gavitt: “The basketball committees considered that as part of the recommendations from the Kaplan report and gave it a lot of consideration a couple of years ago before awarding the next cycle of men's and women’s Final Four sites and decided unanimously that wasn't the direction they wanted to go in. Both events were doing well, have great trajectory and want to continue to see them grow independent of playing at the same site at the same weekend, same time. Any consideration now would have to be early in the next decade, but always going to continue to think creatively and consider all alternatives. I'm sure it will be given consideration when that opportunity presents itself again, but it's not something that's being actively considered or at the current time.”
Q: Does the growth of the women’s game change that equation or conversation, though?
Gavitt: “It certainly could. We have to look at our championships at every level, right? We’re here at the Final Four in Phoenix, and they're in Cleveland this weekend as well. We’ve got three weeks and multiple rounds and it has to be taken into the context of all that as well. There's opportunity to grow the women’s championship, in particular in the first weekend. The regionals, this is just a second year of the two-regional format, which I think has been quite successful from an attendance standpoint. The numbers are off the charts this year. We're in the early stages of that and seeing how we can develop that more and optimize that format. Those are the kind of things in the next few years, at least, [we’re focusing on]. … How do we take advantage of those first couple of weekends, grow the women’s championship more, continue to grow the men's championship to the extent we can? The men's championship, we're mostly at like 95% capacity every place we go now. So how do we kind of build some of the things around those games? There may be some opportunity with ancillary events that we don't currently do as much except for the Final Four sites. Those are the kind of things we're looking at.”
Q: You mention that new regional format with just two sites on the women’s side for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. How has that gone so far?
Gavitt: “We know from an attendance standpoint early returns are very favorable, because we're setting records. I think the idea that the [women’s basketball oversight committee] had in that regard seems to be playing out well. Now it’s kind of refining that and trying to optimize it. Like anything new, there’s always improvements you can make. I think the second year was even better than the first and we have ideas about how we can continue that momentum in the next couple.”
Q: On the men’s side there’s been some discussion about how NIL is helping keep players in school longer and mitigating some of the ramifications of the one-and-done rule, having stars stick around, etc. Do you feel like that’s the case?
Gavitt: “I think so. I don't think we're ever going to go back to where it was 30 years ago, The most talented players on the men's side are still, until or unless the NBPA changes their draft eligibility rules, the opportunity there is so massive that we’ll still lose the very most talented men's players after a year or two, but I definitely think that the next level of player seems to be staying in school longer.”
Q: The NIT, too, has had a lot of discussion about changes to it and, now with Fox Sports’ newly announced tournament, there’s some real competition there. How do you see the future of the NIT moving forward?
Gavitt: “I’m excited about the success of this year's tournament. Attendance was up by almost 20%. Television ratings were up 3% through the quarterfinal rounds. We haven't seen all the numbers yet from the last couple of days, but we had several games over 1 million viewers. So even though there were some teams that opted not to play this year and we did use a different format for this year to try to meet some of the challenge of the marketplace, it was a very successful year. We have a TV deal in place now for the future with the NIT, which we didn't know going into this year’s event. We're really excited to have ESPN as a long-term partner and they do a phenomenal job with that tournament. I'm very bullish about it. I think it's going to have to be considered in the context of what's going on right now — transfer portal, realignment and some more competition in the postseason space — but there's still a real appetite for any number of teams to take advantage of that opportunity. Television is a great opportunity as well and certainly our partner loves the event. We'll have to be nimble about how we consider formatting it and the like going forward, but I'm much more optimistic than anything.”
Q: You mention the transfer portal windows. How much of a calculation is that in college basketball moving forward? What has to be discussed there?
Gavitt: “That'd be a membership decision, of course, but that impacts not just the NIT and any other postseason event, but also impacts the experience, potentially, during the NCAA championships. There's a lot that goes into that consideration. I've heard from coaches and administrators during this year's tournament how that has impacted their need to be monitoring the transfer portal and communicate with their own players. I do think the membership will take a good look at that again and assess whether opening the transfer portal the day after Selection Sunday is the appropriate time, because the other alternative that was considered was to wait and open the portal the day after the men's Elite Eight games. The women play their last Elite Eight game on that Monday, which would at least take it down to the last few teams that are playing, the Final Four teams. There's good arguments both ways because there's 360 Division I members. Most of them are done playing by late February, early March. But it is something that's challenging to manage for coaches when they're trying to play for a national championship and their players are getting that experience. So it’s TBD. I think we'll get a good fresh look again."
Q: Is the simple solution to just move it after the season ends? Is that feasible?
Gavitt: “The challenge there too, is that, academically, at some point you’ve got to close the transfer portal, right? Because you’ve got summer school starting. You're trying to squeeze this time period and if you ask coaches, they would probably say, ideally, shorten the window altogether. It's 45 days right now. I think they feel like 30 days is plenty of time. Most of the men's and women's basketball players make a decision in the first week, or certainly the first two weeks. But that's not where we are right now. We're at 45 days and we’ll have to consider what's best for the future.”
