Las Vegas is the perfect location for the Players Era Festival. After all, that's where the money is.
According to CBS Sports, the new in-season college basketball tournament is still in its formative stages but is poised to debut in November, with each of the eight participating schools receiving NIL's $1 million worth of money through their respective organizations. will be distributed. And if it's successful, it will send a message to all other tournaments throughout the season that it will cost more to attract top schools in the future.
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Details regarding the tournament are still a bit hazy, with even the eight-team field not completely set in stone. According to the report, participating teams include Alabama, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Houston, Rutgers, San Diego State and Oregon, with an eighth team still to be determined. The tournament will be held during the week of Thanksgiving and will compete head-to-head with established in-season tournaments such as the Maui Invitational and the Emerald Coast Classic, which hosted Alabama last year.
But with $1 million in NIL funding available to each school, the other tournaments are just competitions on the calendar. It's definitely going to be less competitive in terms of attracting the top programs in college basketball. And more NIL prizes are planned for the schools that win the tournament. So how does this tournament get around NCAA rules that prohibit pay-for-play? Players are obligated to lend their name, image, and likeness to participate in various promotional activities during the week. there is. Of course, he's not close to $8 million in legitimate exposure value for the brands involved, but in any case, the L in NIL has never stood for legal.
For top-tier coaches, this is not a difficult calculation. For example, you're Alabama coach Nate Oats (he started out as a math teacher). We have filled out the schedule and have a variety of tournament options for November. They can all provide quality opponents. All of these can get you on TV (or on a streaming service) for your fan base. But while one of them can stuff at least $1 million into the NIL coffers – a much more effective recruiting tool than the trip itself – the others can't. Very easy, no need to think.
That doesn't mean the Maui Invitational and other similar competitions will be forgotten. There are many exciting programs, but we cannot invite them all to the Players Era Festival. But the lure of NIL money is going to shake up the landscape of these tournaments in terms of priorities. Also, while there are still many good schools that can participate in other tournaments, in 2025 he could have eight fewer schools, by which time the tournament will have twice as many participating schools as his 16 schools. We plan to increase this number.
Until further notice, the Players Era Festival is expected to draw who it wants, when it wants, unless other in-season tournaments offer their own NIL incentives with the help of big-ticket sponsors. And that may be exactly what happens as the ever-evolving NIL era moves into its next iteration.
But for that to happen, we will need more funding to support these tournaments.
And now the money is in Las Vegas.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of WVUA-23's Crimson Cover TV. Please contact us at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow @chasegoodbread on Twitter.