Less than a year after its beginnings, it becomes more and more obvious that the players’ era festival is there to stay, and that it will change university basketball in November in the predictable future.
The event, which takes place in Las Vegas and offers a million dollars of names, image and compensation of resemblance for all the participating teams and an additional $ 1 million for the winner, made a few waves in 2024 when his event at 8 teams included national powers like Oregon, Alabama and Houston. He then made tsunamis when he announced that he was developing in 2025, and teams like Baylor and Iowa State withdrew from Maui Invitational – considered the grandfather of all the university basketball events in November – in order to participate.
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The 2025 version of the event will include a field of 18 teams which is responsible for contenders in the national championship like St. John’s, Houston, Michigan and Gonzaga. There will also be a female event with 4 teams made up of sustainable national powers in South Carolina, Ucla, Duke and Texas.
The impact of expansion is already felt by tournaments like Maui and The Battle 4 Atlantis, which align much less competitive fields this week of Thanksgiving than fans have used to see.
MAUI FIELD this year? Arizona State, Boisse State, Chaminade, North Carolina State, Seton Hall, Texas, USC and Washington State. Not terrible, but not the game with teams entering the season with the weight of expectations of the last four.
This year’s Atlantis field? Virginia Tech, Saint Mary’s, Vanderbilt, South Florida, VCU, Colorado State, Western Kentucky and Wichita State. Yikes.
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The writing was already on the wall Before Monday news That Louisville, Miami, Missouri, Ohio St. and Virginia signed four -year agreements to participate in the Festival of the Age of players from 2026. The 2026 event now has 24 teams – including the national champion by reigning Florida – committed to participating, and should include 32 teams when everything is said and done.
It is easy to label the PEF as a “disruptor”, but the reality is that the event fulfills an inevitable role which was created by Conference Realignment, Nile and the new model of income sharing of NCAA. If the powers in place behind the players’ era festival did not put these wheels in motion, someone else was going to do it.
Seth Berger, the co-founder of the event, said that he wanted the era players festival to mainly serve the first stage of a triple university basketball crown, the other legs being conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament. The biggest difference (many) between this first step and the other two is the financial component.
The Oregon was the FIRST Players ERA Festival champion, and the Ducks head coach Dana Altman said that the program had been able to stimulate the null package of each player of the team accordingly. He was not the only one who came out of the first impressed event.
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“When you are able to pay players and when you can use the Nile for a good reason and people come here and (it’s) crazy competition, renown temple coaches, American players, it’s the best place to be right now,” said Texas A & M Henry Coleman III striker. “I know there are Maui and current things, but I think it’s the best place to be.”
With the news on Monday, it seems that Vegas can remain the place of the party party to be in the foreseeable future.
