The Players Era Festival wants to change November nonconference scheduling

TWO DAYS AFTER UConn returned home from a disastrous 0-3 trip to the Maui Invitational, Dan Hurley took to the podium following the Huskies' 99-45 win over Maryland-Eastern Shore -- and dealt a blow to the multiteam event (MTE) format that has been a mainstay of the college basketball calendar.

"I'm not doing another three-game MTE again," Hurley said. "Moving forward, we will only play home-and-homes and single-game events in big-time arenas. I don't think I'll ever do a three-game MTE again."

While it might have come across as sour grapes, Hurley's comments were not just a reaction to the previous few days. The Huskies had expressed their future nonconference scheduling plans to multiple entities prior to the Maui Invitational, sources told ESPN.

They aren't the only ones taking this approach. High-major programs, including UConn, are steering away from eight-team events and moving toward four-team events, one-off neutral-site games and home-and-home series. At least five teams ranked in the top 20 of this year's preseason AP poll are in various stages of discussions over home-and-home series beginning next season, sources said.

This would essentially replace the MTE-heavy calendar that has produced many of the most high-profile November games in recent years. Now, the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis are among the only prestigious large tournaments remaining -- and neither is poised to have an elite field next year.

"At the root of this is the MTE model is outdated from a financial standpoint and format standpoint in general," said one high-major staffer involved in scheduling.

One new tournament, the Players Era Festival, is trying to change that, with co-founder Seth Berger telling ESPN he thinks "college basketball needs a great event in November." The tournament, which had its inaugural edition with eight teams in Las Vegas last week, will expand in 2025 to at least 18 schools. With each team earning at least $1 million in NIL opportunities this year and plans to continue that structure moving forward, the event is positioning itself as the preeminent big-field nonconference tournament.

While it has been labeled as a disruptor, Players Era is more so filling a void that has been altered by conference realignment, NIL and a potential revenue sharing model.

"If there are people that are not adapting to that, you're going to get crushed or you're going to wind up with lesser teams," one longtime event operator said. "To survive with the right teams, you have to adapt."

IN SUMMER2023, Berger was with his family on vacation when his son,TJ, who plays basketball at Lafayette, received a text message from an agent regarding an NIL opportunity. The family's conversation naturally shifted to NIL and the changes in college basketball, and suddenly the idea was hatched to start a college basketball event that revolves around a hefty NIL promise.

Berger, the head boys' basketball coach at Westtown School (Pennsylvania) who is better known as the founder of shoe company And1, looped in some of his friends who might have a better idea of how to get the idea off the ground.

He reached out to Ian Orifice, the former president of Time Studios who now runs his own production company, EverWonder. Berger got longtime NBA front office executive Steve Rosenberry involved. Once the details were sorted out, Berger partnered with Intersport, one of the most prominent event operators in college basketball, to run the event.

Houstonwas the first school to commit, and once Kelvin Sampson and the Cougars were on board, other schools -- Alabama, Creighton, Notre Dame, Oregon, Rutgers, San Diego State, Texas A&M-- followed. All eight of this season's participants are scheduled to return in 2025, with Baylor, Iowa State, Gonzaga, St. John's, Michigan, Syracuseand Saint Joseph'salready committed for next season as well. Orifice said the company has $50 million worth of guaranteed NIL opportunities and compensation to players over the next three years.

Berger said he wants to make Players Era the biggest event on the November calendar, comparing it to the first leg of a Triple Crown -- the other legs being conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament. From there, he and Orifice have bigger plans, including a women's tournament and, possibly, summer events -- if the NCAA opens up the calendar for college teams to play exhibitions during those months.

"For everything we do, we're completely aligned with the players," Berger said. "As big an impact as we can have on college basketball with Players Era, that will be continuing to put money into the pockets of college basketball players."

The inaugural edition was considered a success by all parties involved. There was high-quality basketball, with Oregon beating Alabama in the championship game to take home the title -- and an additional $500,000 in NIL opportunities on top of the $1 million it earned by playing in the tournament. Alabama received an extra $250,000 in NIL opportunities for reaching the title game.

Oregon coach Dana Altman said the program was able to bump up everybody's NIL package as a result of the initial $1 million every team earned by participating.

"When I talked to Seth and he told me who was coming, or who he was trying to get, I'm like, OK, those are really good teams so it's going to be a really good tournament, and Vegas is close for us," Altman said. "If our guys get this money, get paid like this, man, that's icing on the cake."

Sources at the participating schools said the NIL activities -- the majority of which were building content for sponsors that included Starbucks, Dick's Sporting Goods and MGM, according to Berger -- required weren't a burden on the players' time, with most of them taking place the day before the tournament began. As a point of clarification: Players Era sends the money to the school's NIL collectives, which then pay out the money. The event is not paying the players directly.

"When you're able to pay players and when you're able to use the NIL for a good reason and have people come out here and [it's] crazy competition, Hall of Fame coaches, All-American players, this is the best place to be right now," Texas A&M forward Henry Coleman III said. "I know there's Maui and stuff going on, but I think right here is the best place to be."

Creighton coach Greg McDermott also came away impressed.

"I know there's a lot of questions about this tournament, going in, from the national media ... but this is incredibly well organized," he said. "I think all the questions were certainly answered. I think they knocked it out of the park with the way this event was run and organized."

The initial $8 million was wired to collectives at each of the participating schools on Dec. 5, Berger told ESPN. The schools that earned extra money by advancing deep into the tournament have additional NIL obligations that will be fulfilled next week, he added.

Berger came away more confident and optimistic about the sustainability of the Players Era Festival and said the event might have to expand next season past the estimated 18 teams because of the growing interest from programs.

"I think it exceeded our expectations in just about every way," he said. "We got super lucky with just how competitive the games were. ... From my perspective, in my first time as an event operator, I was really thankful all the coaches were easy to work with. [The NIL obligations] were smoother than I expected. Everything was really smooth on 'NIL Monday'."

WHILE THE PLAYERS ERA FESTIVALwas going on at the MGM Grand, Dukeand Kansaswere playing in the Vegas Showdown across the street at T-Mobile Arena. The format was vastly different: Instead of three games over the course of a few days or a week, the two bluebloods flew into town for one game, then went back home.

It's exactly the kind of shift Hurley spoke of planning -- one that makes the trip easier on the school logistically and is more profitable financially.

Sources estimate that the upper echelon of power-conference basketball programs -- Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, etc. -- make between $500,000 and $1 million per home game. The number changes, depending on any number of variables, from ticket prices to size of the arena to caliber of opponent.

What that means is those big programs are losing money by going to events such as the Maui Invitational. CBS Sports reported earlier this week that the price to play in that event comes out to around $400,000 per school -- a number ESPN confirmed with programs that have played in Maui. It also means, for that top tier of programs, even playing three games for $1 million at the Players Era Festival is a loss.

But if the revenue-sharing model becomes the way forward, schools will need to find more than $20 million to pay their student-athletes, and maximizing earnings via scheduling is one way to do it.

"The concept is a little tough right now," one event operator said. "There are differing agendas in the athletic department. What the athletic director needs right now, what the head coach cares about right now and what the players care about right now are very different."

Berger agreed, adding, "The top programs of tomorrow, [the focus is] what's best for the players?"

One scheduling approach, aside from Players Era, that would theoretically appease all parties would be playing in a four-team MTE -- especially if there's an NIL tie-in -- or a home-and-home series against a big program, balanced with a buy game. It would check the financial box for the athletic department while also providing high-level competition for the coach and players, without needing to play three games in three days or leave the continental United States.

Another key factor in the shifting approach is conference realignment -- and the growing divide between power-conference schools and everyone else. Essentially, high-major programs don't want to play teams outside the power conferences in these events, multiple industry sources said.

And with the latest round of realignment leaving just five major conferences, it's impossible to build an eight-team field without using programs from mid-major leagues. As a result, some events are going to split-field formats, with one four-team bracket made up of high-major programs and one four-team bracket made up of mid-major programs.

Last week, shortly after the Duke-Kansas game ended, another game at T-Mobile Arena began: Seattleand Furmanplayed head-to-head. They then followed with another leg: Seattle went to Durham to face Duke, while Furman headed to Lawrence to play on the Jayhawks' home court.

Moving forward, creative approaches to MTEs and nonconference scheduling will continue to become more prevalent.

"Teams want to have more control over who they play," one industry source said.

BERGER UNDERSTANDS THE cynicism surrounding the sustainability of the Players Era Festival.

"I think anytime you show up in any market with something brand new and very different, everyone reacts with immediate skepticism," he said.

But with multiyear agreements with MGM and TNT Sports, plus tens of millions of dollars committed for the next couple of years, the Players Era will be a fixture on the November docket.

But what does the rest of the nonconference calendar look like moving forward?

Staple events are downsizing or splitting up into two separate fields under the same umbrella; others, such as the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis, aren't getting the elite eight-team groups they've landed in the past. In their place are marquee neutral-site games such as last week's Kansas vs. Duke showdown, or the home-and-home series Arizona and Duke have played over the past two seasons.

"People want to see competitive games and they want to see more of them, so how do we maximize compelling competition and do it in a way that's financially beneficial for everybody? And we're kind of doing that," one high-major staffer in charge of scheduling said. "The market has changed, and schedules are naturally evolving with the change."