Players Era Festival, the private equity-linked men’s basketball tournament offering $1 million to each of its teams’ NIL collectives, is slated to officially unveil key details about its Thanksgiving-timed platter early next week.
A festival representative told Sportico it plans to announce “a major sponsor,” as well as its broadcast arrangement. That information would presumably shed light on if and how the multi-team event (MTE) intends to turn a profit on a production that could cost nine figures. Industry sources said that even well-established MTEs typically bring in between $1 million and $3 million in revenue.
Last week, Players Era sent its eight participating teams a schedule of matchups and broadcast listings, which showed that 10 of the 12 games would air on TBS, TruTV and TNT, while the remaining pair of contests would stream on Max. That news was first reported on X by CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander.
Players Era is a joint production of EverWonder Studio, which is backed by RedBird IMI and Seth Berger, the co-founder of basketball apparel company And1. Beginning last summer, Berger blitzed the head coaches of college basketball’s top men’s programs with what seemed like an unbeatable (if unbelievable) pitch: $1 million to their official collective for participating plus a potential share of an additional $1 million “pool of NIL opportunities.”
In the end, Houston, Alabama, Texas A&M, Oregon, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Creighton and San Diego State signed on to be the Players Era’s inaugural octet. The teams are broken into two distinct MTEs, which will both take place at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena from Nov. 26-30.
At least two of the teams set to play this year—Creighton and Notre Dame—had to extricate themselves from previous MTE commitments in order to play in Players Era this fall.
Other programs targeted rebuffed the festival’s pitch straight out of hand, concerned that the NIL money wouldn’t ultimately come through or pass muster with the NCAA. Though the NCAA doesn’t officially sanction MTEs, Players Era insists it has worked in close consultation with the association and that it is operating within the bounds of the governing body’s bylaws.
Last month, as Sportico reported, the NCAA sent an FAQ memo to basketball tournament operators and schedulers that specifically underscored the point that MTEs could not pay athletes money as part of quid pro quo for their teams’ participation, even if payments were routed through a third-party entity. Players Era claims that the millions it plans to pay collectives is for the real promotional activities athletes will do on the festival’s behalf, and not as some kind of direct compensation workaround.
Rival tournament operators say that based on industry norms, the economics of the new MTE do not make sense unless Players Era intends to take a large loss up front, a prospect it has so far not indicated.
When asked by Sportico, the Players Era representative declined to confirm that the event had secured a broadcast agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery—which owns TNT, TBS and TruTV—though they confirmed the authenticity of the schedules sent out to schools last week. A spokesperson for WBD declined to comment.
