With all the exciting games over the last few days, these items may have fallen by the wayside:
Ivy League Tournament gets a presenting sponsor
On Thursday, the Ivy League entered into a partnership with money manager TIAA that is the most comprehensive in conference history. As part of the agreement, TIAA will be an official sponsor of the Ivy League, as well as a presenting sponsor of the 2019 Ivy Tournament. According to Bloomberg, the deal is for one year, but Executive Director expects it to extend beyond 2019.
Citizens Bank was the Presenting Sponsor of the inaugural Ivy Tournament, but there was none for the 2018 edition. With this new agreement, next week’s playoff will be known as the 2019 Ivy League Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments presented by TIAA.
Paul Bamundo, Chief Marketing Officer, Ivy League Sports and JMI Sports Marketing Partnership, told IHO, “The agreement with TIAA is our most comprehensive to date. The relationship will start with TIAA being the Presenting Sponsor of the 2019 Ivy League Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. As part of the deal, they will be an Official Partner of the Ivy League overall. That means TIAA will activate at other marquee Ivy League events such as the upcoming Ivy League Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse Tournaments which will take place at Columbia on May 3 and 5. We do expect the relationship with TIAA to continue and grow based upon our shared values and TIAA’s commitment to serving the needs of the Ivy League and our institutions.”
There was no response from the league when asked if the recent decision to hold the 2020-2025 Tournaments on conference campuses will play a role in TIAA agreeing to a multi-year partnership.
Trophies, trophies, who’s got the trophies?
After the Princeton women defeated Yale to capture a share of the Ivy regular season title, the team was presented with the league’s championship trophy. The Penn women, who became co-champions an hour later at Brown, did not have a trophy during their postgame celebrations. According to the Ivy League policy, if there is a tie involving the previous year’s champion, the trophy is presented to the champion from the previous year. As a result, the Harvard men received the league’s trophy after clinching a co-championship at Levien Gymnasium late Saturday evening.
The league office did inform IHO that the other co-champions have the option of using another trophy for a title-clinching postgame celebration at their disrection. While a representative for the Penn’s women’s team told IHO that there was no interest in using a substitute trophy since there was nothing available that could match the unique nature of the actual trophy, the Yale men opted to use an alternative piece of hardware. IHO had hoped that the Bulldogs used the Montgomery Burns (Yale Class of 1914) Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence, but the league office confirmed that a generic trophy was used for the postgame celebration.
Penn’s postgame pottymouth escapes punishment
The Penn men were victorious over Brown to claim the fourth seed for next weekend’s Ivy Tournament and several of the starters were interviewed on ESPN+ immediately following the game. Max Rothschild, the first player interviewed, used some colorful language to describe his excitement at playing such a meaningful game at the Palestra. Both Penn Athletics and the Ivy League have informed IHO that there would be no discipline directed at the Quakers captain.
The league’s statement: “We appreciate Max’s passion for both Ivy League basketball and Penn on an emotional night for him. He appropriately delivered an immediate, on-air apology for the poor word choice.” Penn Athletics noted that Rothschild apologized immediately afterward and also on Twitter, and the school appreciated that he took ownership of the situation and was sincere and genuine in his apologies.
Ivy Tournament ticket update
As of Monday night, there are only 88 remaining tickets for Saturday’s men’s semifinals and 317 tickets left for Sunday’s men’s final.
Saturday’s availability: 37 tickets in Section 201; 20 in Section 205, 1 in Section 206; and 30 in Section 210
Sunday’s availability: 126 tickets in Section 201; 1 in Section 204; 87 in Section 205; 6 in Section 206; and 97 in Section 210
Tickets to the men’s games entitles fans to attend the women’s games for that same day. Tickets can be purchased at the Ivy Madness website.
I don’t have a problem with the Princeton women and the Harvard men getting the trophies on Saturday night while the Penn women and Yale men had to settle for sloppy seconds.
The Princeton women and Harvard men are the Number One seeds. They *should* get the trophies.
The Yale men get to play for revenge on their home court, so that’s their consolation. As for the Penn women, they got to play the Ivy tournament on their home court as the Number Two seed, so no whining out of them, either.