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The Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT) is a women's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for teams that do not qualify for the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament.

The event was founded in advance of the 2023-24 season as a counterpart to National Invitation Tournament (NIT) acquired by the NCAA in 2005. The NIT selects teams not qualify for the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

As with the NIT, the tournament is primarily sited on the home court facilities of its higher seeded teams with the Final Four contested at neutral location selected by the NCAA.

The 2024 site for both the WBIT and NIT Final Fours is Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.The WBIT final is scheduled for the day before the NIT final.

Predecessors
From 1969 to 1996, a National Women's Invitational Tournament (NWIT) existed, preceding, but unrelated to - and later superseded by - the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament.

In 1998, the concept was revived and in 1999 renamed the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) since 1999. The revived tournament began with 16 teams, expanded to 32 in its second season, and has since expanded further to 40, 48, and finally 64 teams from 2010 to 2023.

Despite the names, neither the NWIT nor WNIT was connected with the men's National Invitation Tournament, which was founded by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA) in 1938 and purchased by the NCAA in 2005[2]. It is currently being run and operated by Triple Crown Sports.

Gender Equity Considerations
On February 5, 2021, the NCAA announced that due to logistical considerations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (which prompted the cancellation of the men's and women's 2020 tournaments), the entirety of the 2021 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament would be conducted at sites in and around San Antonio and Austin (mirroring a similar decision for the men's tournament, which would similarly use venues in and around its Final Four host city of Indianapolis), rather than across the country;

Concerns over gender inequality were raised prior to the tournament, citing differences in the quality of facilities and amenities between the women's and men's tournament; among other examples, Arizona coach Adia Barnes criticized the lack of weight training equipment in the workout room (consisting of only a single tower of weights, in comparison to the larger weight room of the men's tournament). A video by Oregon forward Sedona Prince showing the aforementioned weight room drew wider attention to the disparity on social media. Other forms of disparities were noted, including differing COVID-19 testing protocols, smaller "swag bags", and different food options.

In a letter obtained by tournament broadcaster ESPN on March 22, NCAA president Mark Emmert stated that "much has been resolved", but that he would investigate "exactly how we found ourselves in this situation", and "directed our leadership team and appropriate staff to assess all the services, resources, and facilities provided to both the men's and women's teams so that we have a completely clear comparison".

The incident led to discussions surrounding other forms of inequalities between the men's and women's tournaments, including their difference in budget, marketing, sponsorship and media rights contracts

The NCAA commissioned an independent review of gender equality among all of its championships by the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP; the first phase, focusing specifically on NCAA basketball championships, was published on August 3, 2021.

In Chapter 5, the report found that "Put simply, male student-athletes are afforded more opportunities to play competitive basketball by the NCAA than are female student-athletes. These are objective differences in the student-athlete experience that can be readily discerned and fixed" and recommended that "looking at this issue through a Title IX lens, the number of participation opportunities for men and women should be substantially proportionate."

A specific inequity identified was that WNIT teams were required to pay a minimum of $12,000 to organizers toward travel costs to participate while NIT teams had their travel and per diem expenses paid by the NCAA and even distributed a total of $330,000 to teams based in their tournament success.

Among the review's recommendations were that:


 * The women's tournament be expanded to 68 teams, as with the men's tournament.
 * The "March Madness" branding be extended to the women's tournament.
 * The men's and women's Final Four be hosted together in the same venue.
 * The NCAA consider awards of a grant or stipend to schools to help offset their cost of participating in the WNIT.
 * The NCAA should strive to offer financial, promotional, and other support for support events sponsored by third parties (e.g., all-star games), on an equitable basis.

For the next tournament in 2022 the NCAA implemented two of these recommendations—the expansion to a 68-team format, and use of the "March Madness" branding—for the 2022 tournament. but did not announce actions toward the NIT-WNIT disparity.

Announcement of Event
In July 2023, the NCAA announced it would create a direct counterpart to the postseason NIT, the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT). Like the men's NIT, it will feature 32 teams and will be directly run by the NCAA, have travel/per diem expenses covered by the NCAA, and for 2024 would share a finals venue with the NIT. . The announcement of the WBIT led Triple Crown Sports to reduce future WNIT fields to 48, effective with the 2024 edition.

Selection process
As an analogue to the Men's NIT, the structure of the selection process used by NCAA for the NIT was duplicated by the WBIT in September 2023.

The WBIT Selection Committee consists of eight former women's basketball head coaches and administrators. Two members of the committee are scheduled to be replaced each year.

The 2023-2024 committee includes five former coaches - Ceal Barry (Colorado), Brian Giorgis (Marist), Sue Guevara (Central Michigan), Bernadette Locke-Mattox (Kentucky) and Marsha Sharp (Texas Tech) - and three former collegiate administrators - Barbara Burke (Iowa), Kelcey Roegiers (Georgia State) and Janice Ruggiero (New Mexico). Barry, Burke and Ruggiero are all alumni of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee.

Similar to the automatic bids the NCAA Tournament grants for all conference tournament champions, all teams that won regular-season conference championships but failed to earn NCAA tournament bids are guaranteed places in the WBIT.

This automatic bid policy also applied to the NIT when the WBIT proceedures were announced in September 2023. However NIT guideline revisions were announced on October 27, 2023, which instead guaranteed two teams apiece to six major conferences: ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, based on the NET Rankings. This revision did not apply to the WBIT guidelines.

Broadcasters
The WBIT televison rights were awarded to ESPN. The finals will be shown on ESPN2 and semifinals on ESPNU The Twenty-eight preliminary round games will be available on the ESPN+ streaming service.

Westwood One has radio rights to the WBIT semifinals and finals for its affiliate stations and Sirius XM Satellite Radio.