Alexander Brown
A game-changing one-of-a-kind regular-season men’s basketball event to be held later this year in Las Vegas is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks, CBS Sports has learned. Your point of sale is based on O main factor that has drastically altered college sports in the last three years: name, image and likeness compensation for players.
The games will be played in November under the umbrella of an event called “Players Era Festival”, which will also include live music and other attractions for fans amid the glitz of the Las Vegas Strip during Thanksgiving week. In a first for college sports, the event will also include $1 million NIL payouts to eight participating schools. What’s more, the players involved will have future earning opportunities through long-term NIL contracts, sources told CBS Sports.
Alabama, Houston, Notre Dame, Oregon, Rutgers, San Diego State and Texas A&M are all on board, sources said. The eighth and final school for the 2024 event will emerge from a small group that is still in deliberation. The Players Era Festival is also not being presented as a one-year event. Plans are to double the size of the field, sources told CBS Sports, with 16 teams the goal for 2025 and beyond. Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan, Syracuse and Virginia are all involved in discussions about the possibility of playing in 2025. If they choose to participate, most (if not all) of the schools that will play in 2024 will join them, many of which have already signed a three-year agreement, according to sources.
Event organizers are in the final stages of negotiations with MGM Resorts International to hold games at any or all of its three main venues: T-Mobile Arena, MGM Grand Garden Arena and Michelob ULTRA Arena. The tentative schedule is for games on November 26, 27 and 29, with Thanksgiving being a day off. The 2024 format(s) for the eight teams has not been decided. Organizers are still evaluating whether they will have a single eight-team tournament bracket or two separate four-team Multi-Team Events (MTEs).
The tournament would be unique in that each participating school’s NIL collective would receive $1 million. Significant additional NIL opportunities (believed to be in the region of an additional $1 million) would be awarded exclusively to the winner or winners of the event, depending on the format(s) of the final bracket. The money would then be distributed to the athletes by the collectives. Athletes, while in Las Vegas, would be required to participate in various off-court activities to earn this NIL money. This quid pro quo arrangement for NIL money is a key distinction and is at the heart of the festival’s appeal. Pay-to-play remains against NCAA rules. However, athletes he can get paid for NIL work around the actual games, which is the field here.
“If there are events where there is an extraordinary amount of money involved, and there is no donor fatigue involved in that, how do you not participate in that?” a coach participating in the Players Era Festival told CBS Sports. “We do not make a decision that is not based on the NIL. I’ll play in the Mandalay Bay parking lot, just write the fucking check.”
The basketball-focused festival is being organized by EverWonder Studio, a New York-based production company. The tournament will be financially supported by Redbird International Media Investments, a subset of RedBird Capital Partners, a multi-billion dollar investment firm. Redbird IMI is an investment consortium funded mainly by the United Arab Emirates. It is headed by former CNN CEO Jeff Zucker. FrontOffice Sports first reported at the event in March. An official announcement should arrive within the next 10 days, according to a source.
Broadcasting rights have not yet been formally secured; The games are expected to be distributed on a streaming service rather than traditional linear television. The event has been scrutinized and faced backlash from many in the industry because its emergence poses an existential threat to the traditional November/December MTE television model, which has become more prominent in college basketball over the past 15 years. Some schools in the 2024 area have reneged on previous agreements with other MTEs, sparking further discord.
Event organizers have assured everyone involved that the Players Era Festival will be in compliance with NCAA rules, sources said.
“We will do very well to make sure this is fully compliant,” a source added.
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Because the Players Era Festival is aggressively moving into an ever-changing NIL era of player empowerment — and because it has tens of millions of dollars in private equity funding — there is skepticism from many in college athletics about its long-term financial viability. Traditionally, even the best MTEs don’t have huge profit margins. The most high-profile events of the regular season are expected to generate profits of $1 to 2 million. This would also mark a sea change in college basketball due to private equity investments influencing how teams schedule, likely affecting how MTEs will be operated in the future.
Participating schools, however, see an opportunity to alter the landscape at a time when programs are desperate for any fundraising to bolster recruiting capacity and increase their NIL warfare resources. Consider: Many high-profile 2024 transfers last month committed to a variety of programs after being pledged more than $1 million, sources said.
“I would play on Nick Jr., I would play on YouTube. It doesn’t matter,” a coach scheduled to play in the event told CBS Sports. “Everything else has passed our compliance smell test all the way. We haven’t come across a roadblock that’s a definite no.”
Said another trainer at the event: “As long as they are in compliance, our administration is going full steam ahead.” He later said, “You’d be stupid not to do it if you were asked.”
Intersport – a respected/established entity in the sporting events space that annually helps put on the CBS Sports Classic, Fort Myers Tip-Off and many other events – will be the operator of the tournament. Seth Berger is the tournament director. Berger, 56, is a longtime presence in basketball. He is a former high school coach in Philadelphia who primarily founded And1. As a prep coach, Berger won a state title and coached the likes of former five-star prospects Mohammed Bamba and Cam Reddish. Berger was the lead recruiter bringing teams to the event in 2024 and beyond.
NCAA rules prevent schools from playing in the same MTE more than once in four years; That’s why the same high-profile programs aren’t at the Maui Invitational in consecutive years, or even once every three years. As a workaround, Players Era Festival organizers are intentionally trying to separate different MTEs with different names to be played in different Las Vegas arenas in an effort to bring back many of the same teams for several years while technically organizing them into events. separated.
“We are turning this into what NBA All-Star weekend is for the NBA,” said a source involved in the event. “This was going to be a celebratory week for college basketball.”
Players will also be eligible to sign up for a 10% equity stake in Players Era in perpetuity, a source said, meaning college athletes would make money as the company moves forward as long as Players Era continues to grow as an asset in the years. forward. EverWonder Studio is with the aim of expanding its presence in the live sports space in the coming years.
“The concept is for NIL activities, it’s not a one-time swap, it’s about long-term value,” said a source. The festival is also considering including a financial literacy program for all teams/players involved.
EverWonder Studio has produced documentaries and docuseries for Netflix, Apple+ and Disney. Also produced the CMA Awards NFL Tributes and Oscars red carpet show.
There have also been discussions about trying to transform the proposed 16-team event in 2025 into something similar to the FIFA World Cup format, with group stage games, but the viability of this model remains uncertain. If the event plays out as predicted, it could spark the beginning of a changing trend in college basketball for the rest of this decade, if not beyond.
