Title: National Invitation Tournament
Content:  As the NCAA tournament expanded its field to include more teams, the reputation of the NIT suffered. In 1973, NBC moved televised coverage of the NCAA championship from Saturday afternoon to Monday evening, providing the NCAA Tournament with prime-time television exposure the NIT could not match. Even more crucially, when the NCAA eliminated the one-team-per-conference rule in 1975, its requirement that teams accept its bids relegated the NIT to a collection of teams that did not make the NCAA grade. Compounding this, to cut costs, the NIT moved its early rounds out of Madison Square Garden in 1977, playing games at home sites until the later rounds. This further harmed the NIT's prestige, both regionalizing interest in it and marginalizing it by reducing its association with Madison Square Garden. By the mid-1980s, its transition to a secondary tournament for lesser teams was complete.
Title: College basketball
Content:  by the 1951 scandals based in New York City, the NCAA tournament had become more prestigious than before, with conference champions and the majority of top-ranked teams competing there. The NCAA tournament eventually overtook the NIT by 1960. Through the 1960s and 1970s, with UCLA leading the way as winner of ten NCAA Tournament championships, a shift in power to teams from the west amplified the shift of attention away from the New York City-based NIT. When the NCAA tournament expanded its field of teams from 25 to 32 in 1975, to 48 in 1980, to 64 in 1985, and to 68 teams in 2011, interest in the NCAA tournament increased again and again, as it comprised more and more teams, soon including 
Title: College basketball
Content:  In 1939, another national tournament was implemented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The location of the NCAA Tournament varied from year to year, and it soon used multiple locations each year, so more fans could see games without traveling to New York. Although the NIT was created earlier and was more prestigious than the NCAA for many years, it ultimately lost popularity and status to the NCAA Tournament. In 1950, following a double win by the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team (when the NIT comprised 12 and the NCAA 8 teams), the NCAA ruled that no team could compete in both tournaments, and effectively indicated that a team eligible for the NCAA tournament should play in it. Not long afterward, 
Title: Mythical national championship
Content:  came to be regarded as the more important post-season tourney and the sole determiner of the national championship, although following the taint of the gambling scandals, the NIT was still considered a quality tournament for some time afterward. The NCAA built on the momentum of three consecutive Red Cross "mythical national championship" game victories over the NIT, eventually outmaneuvering the NIT by adeptly avoiding permanent damage from the 1951 gambling and point-shaving scandals and by adding more teams. As the NCAA Tournament steadily gained preeminence and became the sole source of naming the national champion, winners of the NCAA Tournament during those early years were given the same level of honor.
Title: National Invitation Tournament
Content:  The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City each March and April, it was founded in 1938 and was originally the most prestigious post-season showcase for college basketball. The 2021 tournament, in which all games are being played in Denton and Frisco, Texas, marks the first time that the NIT's semifinals and championship games are not hosted at Madison Square Garden. Over time it became eclipsed by the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament—now known informally as "March Madness". The 
Title: NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament
Content:  era, the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) competed for prestige with the NCAA tournament. However, in the 1950s the NCAA ruled that no team could compete in both tournaments. But when eighth ranked Marquette declined its invitation in 1970 after coach Al McGuire complained about the Warriors' regional placement and instead went to the NIT (which it won), the NCAA changed the rule to forbid a team that declines an NCAA Tournament bid from participating in any post-season tournament. Since then, the NCAA tournament has clearly been the major one, with conference champions and the majority of the top-ranked teams participating in it.
Title: National Invitation Tournament
Content:  From its onset and at least into the mid-1950s, the NIT was regarded as the most prestigious showcase for college basketball. All-American at Princeton and later NBA champion with the New York Knicks and United States Senator Bill Bradley stated: "In the 1940s, when the NCAA tournament was less than 10 years old, the National Invitation Tournament, a saturnalia held in New York at Madison Square Garden by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, was the most glamorous of the post-season tournaments and generally had the better teams. The winner of the National Invitation Tournament was regarded as more of a national champion than the actual, titular, national champion, or winner of the NCAA tournament." 
Title: National Invitation Tournament
Content:  (1945), Utah (1947), San Francisco (1949) and Holy Cross (1954) claim or celebrate national championships for their teams based solely on an NIT championship,   although Long Island recognizes its selection as the 1939 national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation, made in 1943. In 1943 the NCAA tournament moved to share Madison Square Garden with the NIT in an effort to increase the credibility of the NCAA Tournament. In 1945, The New York Times indicated that many teams could get bids to enter either tournament, which was not uncommon in that day. In any case, since the mid-1950s, the NCAA tournament has been popularly regarded by most institutions as the pre-eminent post season tournament, 
Title: Mythical national championship
Content:  DePaul team, as "the games for the national championship". The NCAA champion prevailed in all three games. During the early years of the two tournaments, the NCAA and NIT competed against each other, giving rise to debate over their relative prowess. In 1939, the inaugural year of the NCAA tournament, the NIT was generally considered to be superior. During the 1940s, the relative status of the two tournaments was unclear, and thus some years produced disputed national championship claims. Some contemporary sources claim superiority for the NIT during this time. In 1943, in a shrewd competitive move the NCAA tournament began sharing Madison Square Garden with the NIT. In 1945, following victories 
Title: National Invitation Tournament
Content:  basketball coaches or athletics directors. The previous structure had no term limits or succession plan. ESPN continues to provide television coverage of the tournament. In 2011 the NCAA and ESPN agreed to a $500 million agreement through 2023–24 for rights to cover championships in several sports, including the NIT; this compares with the 11-year, $6.2 billion TV contract with CBS for the NCAA tournament. These changes are intended to encourage participation by good college teams that would rather stay home than play in the NIT &ndash; to make it the "Little Dance" instead of the "loser's tournament". Former NIT Committee chair and former Alabama and Vanderbilt head 

Question: when did the ncaa tournament became more important than the nit?
Answer: By the mid-1980s.