Sources: Nov. tourney with NIL payouts sets field
-
Jay Bilas, College Basketball AnalystJun 12, 2024, 06:23 AM ET
Close
- College basketball analyst for ESPN and ESPN Expert
- Played and coached at Duke
- Practicing attorney
The field for the first Players Age Festival, a new in-season men’s college basketball tournament that assures to provide each team a minimum of $1 million in name, image and likeness chances beyond the competition, is anticipated to be announced today and will feature 6 schools that participated in the NCAA competition last season, sources said.Sources said the first-round matches will be Houston vs. Alabama, Rutgers vs. Notre Dame, San Diego State vs. Texas A&M and Oregon vs. Creighton.The event will be played in Las Vegas throughout Thanksgiving week.EverWonder Studio, the content studio and production business behind the event
, will soon announce the launch of “Players Period,”an initiative targeted at engaging fans and providing college professional athletes with the opportunity to take part in special NIL activities. Each getting involved group in the tournament will participate in more than$1 million in NIL chances with Players Age sponsors beyond the event.EverWonder is also expected to announce that the Players Period Festival will expand to at least 18 groups in 2025, adding Gonzaga, Michigan
, Syracuse, Saint Joseph’s and St. John’s to the field, sources said.It is anticipated that future occasions and tournaments under the Players Age umbrella will be added, which could include females’s basketball and men’s college basketball preseason events, sources said.