Multimillion-Dollar Event Flouts Status Quo But Embraces NCAA

The Players Era Festival seeks to “bring the Madness to November,” according to its working mantra, but it’s been generating plenty of intrigue and anxiety before even this month.

First announced in May, the festival, which consists of two men’s basketball multi-team events (MTEs) playing out concurrently at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, has appeared to challenge the NCAA’s rules on athlete compensation and the logic of the marketplace.

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Players Era has committed to spending $50 million on NIL money for athletes that play in its games, agreeing to pay each of its participating teams’ affiliated NIL collectives $1 million per year. With eight teams set to kick off the inaugural festival in November, that means organizers are on the hook for $8 million in NIL commitments alone—significantly more money than almost every other MTE earns in total revenue.

On Tuesday, Players Era officially announced a three-year distribution deal with TNT Sports, while unveiling a partnership with Publicis Sports, the American sports marketing division of the French international PR agency. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

In a phone interview this week, Players Era’s co-founders—former AND1 CEO Seth Berger and EverWonder Studios president Ian Orefice—sought to explain why their vision makes sense, even if it flies in the face of industry convention. The key to understanding Players Era, according to its leaders, is to not see it as another tournament, but rather the seed of a college basketball media brand with untold activation possibilities.

While keeping vague about its financial picture, Orefice did offer that Players Era has already generated “eight figures” in revenue commitments for 2024 and would “not lose a lot of money in year one of the event.”

That alone might come as a shock to others in the basketball event space, who have been furiously scratching their heads over—and occasionally rolling their eyes at–the splashy newcomer.

“Their math doesn’t work based upon the market,” said Rick Giles, president of the Gazelle Group, which hosts a number of MTEs as well as the post-season College Basketball Invitational, the first college basketball event to offer NIL money to players.

“Their expenses will be over $10 million and their revenues will be considerably less. So somebody will have to fund a deficit in the range of $9 million to ensure that the players get paid.”

In 2021, Giles acknowledged paying UCLA and Gonzaga “substantially above-market fees” to participate in one of his MTEs, the Empire Classic in Las Vegas during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, but says that there is “no comparison” to what Players Era is now offering.

“Anytime you are challenging a status quo, there’s obviously going to be some friction with those that are trying to protect a previous business model,” Orefice said. “We recognize our entrance has created some disruptions, but we are unapologetically and relentlessly pursuing a future where the players are legally paid for their value and that more people love college basketball all year round.”

To that end, Players Era has struck a conciliatory posture with the NCAA, arguably the ultimate source of stasis when it comes to college athlete compensation.

To that end, both Orefice and Berger say they have no interest in antagonizing college basketball’s governing body, nor do their grand plans for Players Era include competing directly with the NCAA.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“We value the opportunity to be great partners,” Orefice said. “If you think of our two core pillars—compensating players and growing the game of basketball—the NCAA is a huge part of that.”

Without specifically addressing Players Era, an NCAA spokesperson said it is “generally available to our member institutions and event operators who request assistance on the application of NCAA membership approved rules and regulations.”

“I think there are other players in the NIL space that operate through a back door,” Orefice said. “Every decision we have made has been to operate very, very publicly through the front door and in partnership [with the NCAA] and we’re proud of that.”

Early on, according to Berger, other tournament event operators (who he did not name) warned him against engaging with the NCAA on its NIL-paying plans, advice he rejected.

“We want to support the NCAA,” Berger said. “They’ve been great to us in terms of helping … us live within their bylaws.”

Berger heaped praise upon Charlie Baker, calling the NCAA president “incredibly transparent and rational” about the changing landscape of the industry he presides over. Berger also pledged that Players Era’s grand ambitions for the future would not come into conflict with the NCAA’s vernal meal ticket.

“You don’t mess with March Madness,” Berger said. “In fact, we want to support March Madness.”

At the same time, Players Era purports to work off a completely different benchmark than whether any individual production earned more money than it spent.

“You can think for start-ups in general, and especially in college basketball, adapt or die is really the mantra,” Orefice said. “So when we look at what we’re building, we don’t compare ourselves to other single, one-time-a-year, three-day-basketball tournaments.”

Others aren’t so sure.

“Like it or not, this marketplace can provide easy entry and easy exit if you don’t do your due diligence,” Giles said. “If the players don’t get paid in this case, this event won’t happen in the future and the collectives will be left to decide if it is worth it to litigate for the money that is owed.  Unfortunately, there is a history of teams signing up to play in new or “one-off” events and never getting paid.  More due diligence is necessary.”

Dan Shell, the tournament director of the Acrisure Classic in Palm Springs, Calif., similarly expressed skepticism that Players Era can be financially viable.

“At least to this point in time, this is a very simple business in terms of the revenue streams and expenses: there aren’t many,” Shell said. “The revenue streams are simplistic to ticket sales and sponsorship so these events have to be very disciplined on expenses in order to turn even a modest profit.”

Earlier this year, San Diego State paid $150,000 to buy itself out of the Acrisure Classic in order to participate in Players Era. (Creighton, Texas A&M and Notre Dame similarly got out of existing MTE commitments to be part of this year’s field.) Shell said he harbors no ill-will against SDSU or Players Era but has since increased the buyout amounts on its new game participation agreements with schools.

“If there is a proof of concept in Year 1, they can have their pick of every (school),” Shell conceded.

As Sportico previously reported, Players Era has contracted with Intersport, a media and marketing firm, to handle its on-the-ground operations in Vegas. This marks the first time Intersport, which owns two of its own MTEs—the Fort Myers Tip-off and Greenbrier Tip-Off in late November—as well as the four-team CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden in December, has collaborated like this with a competitor.

“It is really important for teams to have quality event promoters in the marketplace and there are not a lot of those,” Mark Starsiak, Intersport’s VP of basketball, said. “Those that are good we try to stay friendly and collaborative with. We just felt with the backing and support and visionary idea [of Players Era], let’s make sure we can help them get the experience off the ground.”

Berger anticipates other MTEs may follow its lead, but he believes Players Era’s bold first step has protected its future.

Berger and Orefice, who have known each other for 16 years, originally met as members of White Manor Country Club outside Philadelphia when Orefice, now 40, was a 14-year-old, and Berger was in his 30s.

A few years earlier, Berger sold AND1, the college basketball apparel and shoe company he co-founded in the early 1990s. By 2001, AND1 had become the second-biggest basketball footwear-maker in the country with annual revenues reportedly approaching $300 million. After initially being acquired by American Sporting Goods, the company was bought and sold multiple times until its most recent parent company, Sequential Brands Group, filed for bankruptcy in 2021.

Meanwhile, Berger has served for the last 18 years as the boy’s varsity basketball coach at Westtown School in West Chester, Penn., a program that has turned out a number of top college basketball prospects over his tenure. Berger’s former players include two of his three sons, both of whom ended up playing Division I basketball.

Berger recalled that the origin of Players Era came from a dinner conversation he and his sons were having last summer about the fast-moving state of college NIL and the under-capitalized commercial value of the pre-March portion of the college basketball season.

Why not address both of these opportunities at once, with a pre-conference basketball event built around paying players?

Berger floated the idea to Orefice, who had recently left his job as president and COO of Time Studios to become CEO of EverWonder, an upstart production company backed by Jeff Zucker’s RedBird IMI. Soon, Orefice pitched the idea to Zucker, who he said was immediately supportive.

While describing Zucker as serving “more [in the role] of a strategic advisor” on Players Era, Orefice said the former CNN president has since been actively involved in Players Era’s discussions with the NCAA and negotiations with TNT Sports. (Zucker did not respond to a text message seeking comment.)

The TNT partnership came together in the last month, according to Orefice, after Players Era opted out of negotiations with another distributor he declined to identify.

In the coming weeks, Players Era plans to announce its founding charity partner, title sponsor and additional team commitments for 2025.

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