Triple Crown Sports, a company based in Fort Collins, Colorado that specializes in the promotion of amateur sporting events,[1] created the WNIT in 1994 as a preseason counterpart to the then-current National Women's Invitational Tournament (NWIT).

Originally, the preseason WNIT was a single-elimination tournament, but since the 2007 edition has used a format which guarantees all participating teams three games.

In 2006, competing schools assumed more responsibility, hosting the early rounds of the tourney, and additional expansion was made to forty teams.

This most recent change came shortly after the NCAA announced it would create the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament, a 32-team event whose first edition will be held in 2024.

The format won't affect the WNIT's automatic bid to any regular season conference champion not making the 68-team field, since 2022.

Since the WNIT is a for-profit tournament, all games are played on the site of the higher bidding team.

Early-round pairings are regionalized as much as possible in order to minimize missed class time and travel costs.