It's a terrible format and won't be better next year when it expands to 32 teams. Next year is supposed to be 4 groups of 8 teams with each team playing 3 pre determined opponents in their group and using the same tiebreakers as this year, meaning point differential, to determine the winner of each of the 4 groups. Just like this year, the two group winners with the highest point differential will meet in the "championship" game and the two group winners with the lowest point differential will meet in the 3rd place game.
The organizers are trying to make this into a soccer tournament style format, but it doesn't work for basketball. There's too much outside money involved and the format is way too easy for someone to manipulate an outcome for extra money they wouldn't otherwise receive.
Based on attendance this year, I can't see the Big 12 schools especially coming out ahead here since 8 are playing every year and it sounds like KU is one of the schools that signed a multi year deal with this event so it sounds like this is our MTE for the next several years.
Last year for the Duke game, I spent about $1k for flights, 3 nights in a hotel, tickets, food, and shows in Vegas. This year, for 2 extra nights and games, it was going to be somewhere between $2,000 and $2,500 to go out there and I wasn't abiut to do that this year. I imagine pricing will be similar or more expensive going forward so I can't see myself making that trip again for KU which has been the reason for my two trips out there.
