The next edition of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas will feature more than $20 million in payouts and a collection of the top teams in America.
Following an accidental leak of the Thanksgiving week event’s schedule by Michigan on Tuesday, sources confirmed the slate, which will feature 10 teams currently ranked on ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 poll for the 2025-26 season, including top-10 squads St. John’s, Michigan and Houston.
Each team is guaranteed at least a $1 million payout, a significant sum in the new climate of collegiate sports after the House settlement. Last year, event officials paid the schools directly for their participation. It’s unclear how this season’s payouts will be distributed to align with the new rules, which have given every power-conference school a cap of nearly $20 million to give directly to its athletes.
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This year, the Players Era Festival teams will compete on Nov. 24 and Nov. 25 at both the MGM Grand Garden Arena and Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas with a chance to advance to Wednesday’s championship game, which will include an additional payout to the winner, sources confirmed.
The inaugural women’s portion of the event will also feature a foursome of powerhouses with South Carolina, Duke, UCLA and Texas all set to compete in Las Vegas that week, too.
This year’s event on the men’s side will include Kansas (21st), Creighton (22nd), St. John’s (5th), Tennessee (23rd), Iowa State (18th), Houston (3rd), Auburn (14th), Alabama (17th), Michigan (8th) and Gonzaga (19th).
Michigan-Auburn, St. John’s-Iowa State and Alabama-Gonzaga are three of the top matchups in the preliminary rounds.
After his team’s run to the Final Four in April, Tahaad Pettiford withdrew from the NBA draft and returned to become the new leader of an Auburn squad with SEC title dreams. Michigan, which won the Big Ten tournament title last season but lost Danny Wolf in the NBA draft, regrouped by adding NBA prospect Yaxel Lendeborg and other key transfers.
Rick Pitino’s St. John’s squad could win the Big East again if Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins is healthy, while three of Iowa State’s starters from a team that earned a 3-seed in the NCAA tournament are back. And both Alabama and Gonzaga will enter next season with the same goals: to win the first national title in school history.
The buildup to last year’s event was met with skepticism as organizers promised seven-figure payouts to the eight teams that agreed to participate in the inaugural affair. But those who played in the Players Era Festival were impressed by the way it was organized. Seven of the eight teams that participated in the first event will return this year.
“I couldn’t say no,” Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson said about last year’s opportunity to earn a seven-figure payday for his players in the event.
The slate’s announcement is significant because the Players Era Festival has captured a large portion of the top teams in America and the organizers of the event intend to expand the field in the years ahead. That reality has limited the reach and talent pool available to some of the other holiday tournaments (MTEs) in November and December.
