Big tournament, bigger money: How the Players Era event is changing college basketball in just its second year

LAS VEGAS — The Players Era Festival debuted in 2024 as a groundbreaking, risky, controversial and, in industry circles, widely maligned concept.

The eight-team men’s basketball tournament promised to pay $1 million to every school — with another million in cash split amongst the teams that finished in the top four.

Nothing like it had ever been tried. In the minds of some, the vision pitched to coaches and athletic directors was too good to be true. For the doubters, the premise seemed flawed at best and potentially fraudulent at worst because, despite their sometimes-high-profile nature, nonconference multi-team events (MTEs) are not mega moneymakers. Yet here was this shiny new tournament promising gobs of NIL loot run by people with minimal experience in the college basketball space. 

But last December, despite an army of skeptics who tried to warn the coaches that something would go wrong, all eight teams were paid on time and in full as promised. Every school and coach from 2024 is back in Vegas this year, with some having recently agreed to long-term extensions to stay on with Players Era through the end of the decade.

“As a college basketball nut, I genuinely believed, and still believe, of course, there’s an opportunity for a major college basketball event in November,” Players Era co-founder Seth Berger told CBS Sports. 

Berger birthed the idea in the summer of 2023, banking on a hunch that college basketball had not yet taken advantage of the November calendar in the NIL era.

“The World Series is over, and I really think NBA basketball starts on Christmas Day,” Berger said. “College basketball has always started in November. But let’s give it more. Let’s give everyone a reason to watch, not just the most hardcore of the fans. So first and foremost, I thought there was an opportunity to create a great American sporting event, a tentpole event in November.” 

Berger, 58, brought previous business chops that enabled him to dream big. He co-founded AND1 in the 1990s on what he said was “literally the day I graduated from Wharton (School).” Berger was 25 and selling T-shirts out of his car. The company would go on to become a culture-influencing basketball brand over the next decade.

“I had people tell me that no consumer would ever buy an AND1 T-shirt instead of Champion or Russell. And that we could never compete with Adidas, Reebok, Converse, you name it,” Berger told CBS Sports. “And my thought was, You might be right, but I’m sure going to find out. And if I fail, it won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last. Failure is always an option, but if you never take a risk of failure, you never push yourself far enough.” 

Berger sold AND1 in 2005. For the past 19 years, his love for hoops has continued to run his life, as he’s been the varsity boys basketball coach at Westtown School, a prep academy in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Among the nearly 30 Division I players who’ve played for Berger, NBAers Dereck Lively and Mo Bamba stand out among the best. Berger has four state titles, four state runner-ups and nine league titles to his name. 

Now he finds himself in the unexpected but powerful position of running an event that is altering the very nature of how the college basketball schedule is built in the first month of the season. 

After blending in with hoops’ November tapestry a year ago, the sophomore edition of Players Era is poised to be the biggest thing in the sport during arguably its highest-profile week in the first two months of the season. This year, Players Era swells from eight to 18 men’s teams, with two arenas combining to host nine games per day and airing on TNT and truTV the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. 

Four big-brand women’s teams are also flying into the desert and will have their moment on the Vegas stage: No. 2 South Carolina, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 Texas and Duke will compete Wednesday and Thursday. Event organizers have committed north of $20 million in participation and prize money, an astonishing payout. If you think that’s ambitious, just know that 2024 and 2025 are ramp-ups for what the event’s founders are building for 2026 and beyond: a whopping 32-team men’s event that will combine World Cup-style pool play (eight teams in four pods) before feeding into bracket competition across a near-three-week span every November. 

Should it go off as scheduled, the Players Era Festival will be, by far, the biggest regular-season event in the sport’s history, with participation/prize money purportedly upward of $30 million for schools and players. 

College hoops’ non-con calendar is profoundly evolving; Players Era is the hand forcing the market to adapt. The event forced the NCAA to change its rules about how many teams from conferences could play in an MTE and if teams could play in the same event year after year. 

There will surely be more big money-driven events emerging in the next couple of years, while November mainstays — most notably the long-running and nostalgia-inducing Maui Invitational, in addition to tournaments like the Battle 4 Atlantis, the ESPN Events Invitational, the Charleston Classic and others — will be forced to update their formats and philosophies. If they don’t, they’ll be at risk of dissolution or, if they can remain operational, could see their fields reduced to low-end high-majors and mid-major schools.

The effects are already being seen with those tournaments this week: Maui’s tournament is a stark downgrade from last season’s epic eight-team field. The 2025 Battle 4 Atlantis bracket is objectively its weakest ever. 

“It’s going to hurt the sport overall,” said one event operator on background, who has been and continues to be skeptical of Players Era. “When you hurt the traditions, you hurt the sport.”

One coach at a top-10 program lamented: “Maui’s gonna die, just because everyone needs money and we’re doing anything we can to get it to pay players. We’re playing exhibition games to make money. The single, soul-driving factor in all of this is: How can I get extra money?”

There are essentially 80 power-conference schools in men’s D-I. With Players Era bringing on 30-32 of them starting next year, that means 40% of the biggest college basketball brands will be accounted for in one tournament. Most other MTEs will pay the price, and it’s fair to argue that in exchange for one huge event, college hoops could be losing a piece of its soul. Over the past 30-plus years, the sport’s identity in November has come from the quilt-like medley of different tournaments in different locations. Some of them tropical, some of them bizarre, but all of them tied to the the spirit of the game.

Is a 32-team event in Las Vegas a good thing? Players Era co-founder Ian Orefice envisions an annual November basketball festival that inaugurates the mainstream start to the season while doubling as a functional bookend to the NCAA Tournament.

“The great thing about March Madness is the entire world comes together for a singular championship, and now we have a chance to deliver something like that in November,” Orefice told CBS Sports. “People realized that if we succeed, the models for operators is going to have to change, and the order of: operator, program, fan, then player had to change. It was going to be players first, which is why our company is named Players Era.”

The recruiting pitch has largely worked. Future NBA lottery picks and Hall of Fame coaches will be in Vegas this week, and the media and NBA-scout contingent on hand will far outpace any other college basketball event this month. Half the field of this year’s tournament includes ranked teams: No. 2 Houston, No. 7 Michigan, No. 11 Alabama, No. 13 Gonzaga, No. 14 St. John’s, No. 16 Iowa State, No. 20 Tennessee, No. 22 Auburn and No. 24 Kansas. 

Next year, big-name powers such as Louisville, Florida and Virginia are joining, Berger said, in addition to Texas A&M, Miami and more — much more. 

The Big 12 has been in discussions with Players Era for months, and according to league sources, a term sheet for a lengthy contract has been signed. An announcement is expected imminently and will detail a college sports first: a conference conjoining with an MTE operator to send multiple schools from its ranks to a specific event in a multi-year arrangement. The Big 12’s plan, per sources, is to auto-slot its top eight teams into Players Era starting in 2026, though some teams will have out clauses when certain conflicts arise. For example, Arizona is scheduled to play in Maui in 2026 and the school isn’t planning on abandoning its commitment, according to sources.

Nevertheless, with eight Big 12 schools accounted for moving forward, Players Era has 26 of its 32 slots locked up, with the other six likely to be finalized in the next three months.

The teams that opted in and took a chance to play in the 2024 event have been given priority for inclusion in the years ahead. Berger said Houston essentially has a “lifetime” deal so long as Kelvin or son Kellen Sampson is coaching there, while Creighton and San Diego State have both agreed to be a part of the tournament through November 2029. 

“I really believe in loyalty,” Berger said. 

Iowa State has a long-term deal as well, in addition to the likes of Kansas and Baylor, all of which will hoop on the Strip this week.

“This is the future of college basketball, and if you don’t adapt you’ll get left behind,” one Big 12 administrator told CBS Sports. “It’s an opportunity to play high-quality opponents at a destination where your fans want to visit, while also creating NIL opportunities for your student-athletes. Compare that with other MTEs, which are a drain on your resources and often not as appealing to fans, and Players Era was an easy decision.”



Players Era idea was born with an Instagram DM 

How did we arrive at a place where schools and players are being paid big money to play three games in three days? 

It all began with a DM from a low-level agent to a Patriot League player.

It was August of 2023 when TJ Berger showed his father a direct message. 

“It said give me your NIL rights for, and I don’t remember where the number was, but it was a really small amount of money to sign away your rights,” Berger said. “What I realized at that point was there are going to be a ton of people who are going to be taking advantage of these athletes. So if we could form a company, the basis of which is that we were going to find meaningful ways to compensate college basketball players for their name, image and likeness, fully within NCAA then — and now, CSC guidelines — we could create a really meaningful company that created great events, but also did right by the kids. So that’s why, effectively, we started Players Era.”

Berger’s motivation stemmed in part of being not just a coach, but a father to two Division I players. His younger son, Quin, is a senior at Bucknell.

Within days of the agent messaging his son, Berger called Orefice with the idea. The two have known each other for decades. Orefice, 41, previously was a chief executive at Time, Inc. and is now the CEO of EverWonder, a production company that works with the NFL in producing the Christmas Day games for Netflix, in addition to other live events and entertainment documentaries. He happened to be in Nova Scotia with his kids when Berger called.

“I trust him completely,” Berger said. “I called him as a good friend, so he would tell me, ‘No.’ A good friend is going to tell you not to pursue an idea. They’re not going to tell you what you want to hear. And he said, ‘I think it’s a great idea, and I think, actually, we could do it with you.'” 

Within two weeks, Berger and Orefice were on the golf course working through the initial blueprint for Players Era when Orefice dialed up a powerful friend: former CNN president Jeff Zucker, who is now the CEO of Redbird International Media Investments. Redbird IMI operates under Redbird Capital Partners, a hedge fund worth north of $10 billion with ties to the United Arab Emirates. 

“Jeff said, ‘Wow, I think that’s a great idea. Let’s try to make this happen together,'” Berger said. 

From the time Berger’s son received that DM from an agent to Zucker coming aboard, it was barely two weeks. The Players Era team also includes Jeremy McCool (who worked for the NCAA for 17 years), Matt Pooley (who previously with Hoop Group out of Philadelphia) and Steve Rosenberry, a longtime NBA scout with connections all across basketball. 

Berger soon started reaching out to a few coaches to see if it could be possible to build his dream event.

“We anticipated the coaches’ questions, and even with the relationships we had, it took a little bit of time for them to believe that we’re going to deliver what we said we’re going to deliver,” Berger said. 

Questions like: Is the money real? You’re going to give us $1 million just to play? You’ve never operated an event. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Why should we take a chance on this? It could be a disaster. 

“Other event operators, who will remain nameless, were not only calling our teams, they were calling WBD and MGM and saying, ‘Players Era doesn’t have the money,'” Berger said. “They were telling that to the teams. They were telling the TV people: the teams aren’t showing up. They were telling MGM: the teams aren’t showing up. They were doing everything they could to make people believe that this was not going to happen all the way up until the first ball was tipped.” 

Nervous coaches would call Berger: Hey, do you really have this money, and are you sure that this is going to be on TNT? 

Berger’s relationships were critical to giving Players Era a chance to get off the ground. Houston’s Kelvin Sampson was the first verbal yes. One of Berger’s other initial calls was to Dusty May. May, who was at FAU at the time, was also on board from the outset. One of his players, Jalen Gaffney, played for Berger at Westtown. 

“We were trying to figure out how to generate revenue at that time. This was the first revenue stream and we had some mutual connections with Jalen Gaffney being from the area, and they spoke highly of Seth as a person,” May said. “You can trust him. What he says, he’ll do. It was forward-thinking.”

“I had a previous relationship with one of the people in charge,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott told CBS Sports. “As a result, I trusted what they were saying. In this new era of revenue sharing/NIL, the money was a determining factor along with the quality of competition.”

Coaches alone couldn’t agree this into existence, though. Intersport, which is as respected an event operator as there is in college basketball, eventually agreed to help with the on-the-ground logistics. That was a pivotal step, and then came the crucial big piece: an agreement with MGM Resorts. It had the hotel space, arenas and hospitality track record to make this not just possible, but a well-run experience. Without those two deals, Players Era almost definitely never happens.

“MGM was really the first partner to say, ‘We believe in this event. We want this event here,'” Berger said.

By January 2024, the recruiting pitches were on. While Sampson and May were the first verbal yeas, San Diego State (April 25), Rutgers (May 2), Notre Dame (May 8) and Texas A&M (May 9) were the first four schools to sign a term sheet. 

The contracts came with caveats. Michigan is in Players Era instead of FAU because the contract was tied to May, not the school, which is not how these MTEs typically work. It’s also why former Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams will coach his new team, Maryland, in Las Vegas this week, while his prior one waits one more year to join the party. 

May also said, “There’s a caveat that if we get offered more from another event, they have to match or let us out.”

Last year’s event included a thrilling finale: Oregon beat Alabama 83-81 to earn 500K of the bonus $1 million. Days later, all the money was wired to the schools, who then paid the players by virtue of having participated in digital and in-person NIL activities that were reviewed by the NCAA. (This year, because of the new conditions of the House settlement, those endorsement deals will go through NIL Go and the clearinghouse overseen by the major accounting firm Deloitte.)

“Once the NIL activations were done and the money was wired for the NIL obligations that the kids performed, all the rest of the questions were answered,” Berger said. “A lot of times when you go to an event, operators don’t treat you [well]. And we obviously want to treat all the players, their teams and coaches like they’re kings, as they deserve to be. This is something that I wake up every day and I’m just ecstatic to do.” 

Berger also said he doesn’t begrudge the people who badmouthed the event — and the ones who still do.

“I don’t take it personally in any way that anyone believed this couldn’t happen or questioned our ability to do it,” he said. “I would question it too. As a high school coach, anytime someone calls for emails to invite Westtown to their event, I want to know everything about that event operator, everything about that event. I want to know when they say they have eight hotel rooms for our team if they will. I’m never going to put my kids in a bad spot. … As a coach, I appreciated all the skepticism that the coaches had, because what they’re really doing is protecting the young men that play in their program.”

Questions about money persist

The skepticism around Players Era’s funding has been prominent since word first leaked of the event in early 2024. 

“Where is the revenue coming from?” one expert in the space asked. “Because right now it is absolutely not profitable.” 

Orefice told CBS Sports that last year’s event ran on a deficit (nearly $500,000), but that the men’s 2025 championship will in fact end up in the black.

“The tournament itself is self-funding the entire operation,” Orefice said. “That is surprising to lots of people, whether they want to believe it or not. … I’m never trying to hurt anyone else’s business. It’s not who I am, and any negative outcome that another person has I would genuinely be sorry for.” 

When I told one expert in the events space about Orefice’s claim, here was their response: “I’m not sure that you get anybody that knows some of what they’re doing sponsorship-wise — what’s being spent on the broadcast and all that — I’m not sure you’d find anybody that would see that as a statement that’s possibly right.”

Orefice did say the four-team women’s tournament won’t turn a profit this year.

But the men’s is is profitable on its own without RedBird IMI, Orefice said, adding he would have single-handedly made sure every team was paid last season even if it all had to come out of EverWonder’s account.

“My previous role running Time is why we run this differently than most other event organizers,” Orefice told CBS Sports. “When we look to the future, the main difference between Players Era and other early season tournaments in the past, they were running a single basketball tournament. Players Era is a brand. It has different product lines. We have another basketball showcase we’re excited to announce shortly, we’re exploring college football opportunities … Players Era is a media company, it is not a basketball tournament.”

Said Berger: “Our reputations were completely on the line, but Ian and I were never worried about the money being there for the teams.”

Orefice cited the most prominent sponsorships and partnerships with Geico, Publicis Groupe, MGM and TNT in making this year’s festival profitable. Ticket sales have easily cleared $6 million, he added. (Unlike last year, all schools are on the hook for 500 tickets at premium prices this year, putting more burden on the schools — but they make the money back if they sell the tickets.)

Also, the initial pitch for this event — the eight teams that played in it last year all received a $1 million for participating — will be changing. This year may not see every team receiving $1 million after some updates to how all expenses are accounted for, and that most definitely will not be the case come 2026 when the field balloons to 32 on the men’s side alone. Some critics of the event said what Players Era was selling would not wind up being the reality, and in this regard, they’ve been proven right.

The biggest schools are getting better deals than a lot of other teams in the event. Because of that, it’s also halted some other programs from joining the fold. (For example: Missouri and Ohio State were previously were in talks to play in 2026 but are no longer expected to be involved.)

“Not every team on the men’s side will have the same deal next year,” Berger said. “For some of the new teams that have signed up, transparently, we have a bunch of teams that want to now come in for free because they want the competition. They want to be part of this event.”

Players Era remains within the guidelines of the newly founded College Sports Commission as well, Berger said: “We continue to evolve with the rules. Last year, we very simply sent the money to collectives. The collectives distributed the money to the kids. We had obligations they had to fulfill, and an estimated value for what the postings that those kids had to make and the activities that they had to do, we documented everything to make sure that it was a fair market value and made it all available to anyone that wanted to see it, including the NCAA this year, because the CSC has different rules.”

This year, schools will receive money one of three ways: through an approved collective, which can then pay the players; direct payment to players for NIL services rendered in connection to the event; and/or a wire payment to the school, which can put that money into its revenue-share pile, provided it has space in its salary cap to do so. (Schools like Gonzaga, UNLV and St. John’s would all apply to this scenario.)

“It’s a first-class event. Great communication from the organizers with clear expectations all around,” one Big 12 source said. “They’ve had to be innovative with the implementation of NIL Go, but they’re doing everything possible to make it legitimate. They need to make some improvements to the tournament format with the way it’s bracketed, but I’m confident those will be implemented soon.”

Players Era skeptics still wary of long-term viability

The perpetual skepticism Berger and Orefice have pushed back against from the start still permeates in plenty of corners around college athletics. Even with this week’s tournament set to play out with a litany of relevant games, there’s no shortage of people on the business side and in athletic departments who have their doubts about the long-term viability of the event. 

“I believe most everyone was skeptical,” McDermott told CBS Sports. “Currently, every school in the country would like to be part of it.”

McDermott speaks from a place of comfort, but his claim is not true. I’ve spoken to a few schools that aren’t tempted and have resisted recruiting pitches for more than a year.

“As things stand right now, we have no intentions to ever play in Players Era,” one person in charge of scheduling at a prominent high-major program told CBS Sports.

It’s also conspicuous that most blue bloods (Duke, Carolina, Kentucky, UConn, UCLA) haven’t committed to this point, though Berger and Orefice have certainly been diligent in their recruiting efforts there. 

“There is a certain level of school that, if done right, can actually generate more on money off that inventory of games,” another source at a prominent program told CBS Sports. “Now, you have to do it right and not everybody can do that. We’re going more toward a model where schools want to have control of their inventory. In that mindset, why would you want to give up control of what games you’ll play? We have a limited number of games we can play, so if you’ve only got so many games, you better spend them wisely.”

Kentucky, for example, would need to be paid close to $5 million for just three games alone to make up for the revenue it would lose by not having those three games at home, Wildcats coach Mark Pope told CBS Sports. Players Era can’t commit that much money to one school.

As for the format, 32 teams will invariably lead to some major politicking from coaches next year. These are notoriously finicky people when it comes to having their say in who they do and do not play. More money, more schools, more problems. There’s also a scheduling factor that could be a problem: depending on how teams advance in the 2026 event, they might have to either not schedule a buy-game opponent or will have to cancel it on account of the 32-game regular season in 2026-27. 

There’s also a philosophical question about if having one major tournament with 85% of the same teams in it every year is a good thing. Can Players Era get too big? Orefice thinks 32 is the ideal number and sees Players Era as a big enough attraction in the years to come that it will uplift college basketball’s presence in a way that’s never been achieved in November.

“The continued skepticism is real and I don’t blame anyone, our only ask is watch the quality of basketball,” Orefice said. “We would strongly argue the best tournament in the history of college basketball, other than March Madness, starts this week.”

Las Vegas as the setting for all of this is too perfect. It only makes sense that the biggest money grab in college hoops is going down out in the desert, and this after the NCAA resisted any proper affiliation with Sin City for decades. Now it’s hosting NCAA Tournament regionals at T-Mobile Arena and, in two and a half years, will bring a men’s Final Four here.

It’s a bold new world. You either adapt or you get left behind. The players finally hold a fair share of the power. They’ll play 31 games over four days and reward 22 programs with more than $20 million the week of Thanksgiving. This was unfathomable just a couple of years ago. 

But the future of high-major college basketball scheduling has arrived, and so long as the money clears, this is how the sport will operate at the start of every season moving forward.

2025 Players Era schedule

Monday’s games

All times ET Rutgers vs. No. 20 Tennessee, 1 p.m. (TNT)Creighton vs. Baylor, 2 p.m. (truTV)No. 24 Kansas vs. Notre Dame, 3:30 p.m. (TNT)No. 14 St. John’s vs. No. 16 Iowa State, 4:30 p.m. (truTV)No. 2 Houston vs. Syracuse, 6 p.m. (TNT)No. 22 Auburn vs. Oregon, 8 p.m. (truTV)No. 13 Gonzaga vs. No. 11 Alabama, 9:30 p.m. (TNT)No. 7 Michigan vs. San Diego State, 10:30 p.m. (truTV)UNLV vs. Maryland, 12 a.m. (TNT)

Tuesday’s games

Rutgers vs. Notre Dame, 1 p.m. (TNT)No. 16 Iowa State vs. Creighton, 2 p.m. (truTV)No. 24 Kansas vs. Syracuse, 3:30 p.m. (TNT)No. 14 St. John’s vs. Baylor, 4:30 p.m. (truTV)No. 2 Houston vs. No. 20 Tennessee, 6 p.m. (TNT)No. 7 Michigan vs. No. 22 Auburn, 8:30 p.m. (TNT)No. 13 Gonzaga vs. Maryland, 9:30 p.m. (truTV)Oregon vs. San Diego State, 11 p.m. (TNT)UNLV vs. No. 11 Alabama, 12 a.m. (truTV)

Wednesday’s games (all determined following Tuesday’s results)

Premier Four Third-place game, 7 p.m. Championship, 9:30 p.m. Consolation games TBD