Originally the tournament invited a field of six teams, with all games played at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.

From 2007 to 2019 and since 2022, the tournament reverted to the current 32-team format; 2021 saw the field cut to 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where no games were scheduled the year before.

From 1943 to 1945, the American Red Cross sponsored a postseason charity game between each year's tournament champions to raise money for the war effort.

[28] Between 1939 and 1970, when teams could compete in either tournament, only DePaul (1945),[29] Utah (1947),[30] San Francisco (1949)[31] and Holy Cross (1954)[32] claim or celebrate national championships for their teams based solely on an NIT championship,[33][34][35][36] although Long Island recognizes its selection as the 1939 national champion by Helms Athletic Foundation,[37] which was made retrospectively in 1943.

[20][25] Nevertheless, as late as 1970, Coach Al McGuire of Marquette, the 8th-ranked team in the final AP poll of the season, spurned an NCAA at-large invitation because the Warriors were going to be placed in the NCAA Midwest Regional (Fort Worth, Texas) instead of closer to home in the Mideast Regional (Dayton, Ohio).

[2] In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association purchased 10-year rights to the NIT from the MIBA for $56.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit, which had gone to trial and was being argued until very shortly before the settlement was announced.

[42] On August 12, 2022, the NCAA announced that the final rounds of the 2023 NIT would be held at Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada and hosted by nearby UNLV, and the 2024 site would be Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

[43] The status of the post-season National Invitation Tournament as a "consolation" fixture has led to something of a stigma in the minds of many fans.

When teams with tenuous hopes of an NCAA Tournament berth lose away from home late in the season, opposing fans may taunt the players in the closing seconds with chants of "NIT!

David Thompson, an All-American player from North Carolina State, called the NIT "a loser's tournament" in 1975.

In succeeding years, other teams such as Oklahoma State, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Georgetown, and LSU[45][46] have declined to play in the NIT when they did not make the NCAA tournament.

In 2008, however, Williams announced that if invited, the Terps would play, because it would serve as a chance to further develop six freshman players on his squad and to give senior forward James Gist more exposure.

However, during the recent remodeling of Pauley Pavilion a plaque was installed along the concourse of the building commemorating the Bruins' 1985 NIT Championship.

For other teams, however, the NIT is perceived as a step up, helping programs progress from mediocrity or obscurity to prominence, and the response is more enthusiastic.

St. Bonaventure, a school that, since 2014, has a policy of refusing to play in those newer tournaments, still accepted bids to the NIT, if invited.

[50] In 2024, it further began declining bids to the NIT as well, stating that the expense of a road trip of up to five games, the result of if the team were ranked in the lower half of the bracket, could not be justified.

Therefore, schools selected to play in the NIT were often major conference teams with records near .500 that had large television fan bases and would likely have a respectable attendance for tournament games on their home court.

The latter is one reason why New Mexico was invited virtually every year—the Lobos often had a winning season but failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament.

Instead, a committee of former NCAA head coaches, chaired by Newton, and including Gene Keady (Purdue), Don DeVoe (Tennessee), Rudy Davalos, Les Robinson (NC State), Reggie Minton (Air Force), John Powers, and Carroll Williams among others, prepared a list of potential teams in advance.

These changes are intended to encourage participation by good college teams that would rather stay home than play in the NIT—to make it the "Little Dance" instead of the "loser's tournament".

Former NIT Committee chair and former Alabama and Vanderbilt head coach C. M. Newton stated, "What we want to have is a true basketball event, a real tournament, one where there's no preconceived ideas of who gets to New York.

The top two teams in the NET Rankings that do not qualify for the NCAA tournament from each conference, regardless of their record, will be selected for the NIT, and guaranteed the ability to host a game for the first round.

Lastly, guaranteed bids would be given to regular season champions with an average of 125 or better across the BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WAB rankings.

In July 2023, the NCAA announced it would create a direct counterpart to the postseason NIT, the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), with the first edition held in 2024.

[62] The WBIT follows the pre-2024 NIT practice of extending invitations to all regular-season champions of Division I conferences that were not selected for the NCAA tournament (if eligible).

[63] The announcement of the WBIT led Triple Crown Sports to reduce future WNIT fields to 48, effective with the 2024 edition.