The nonconference college basketball event that says it will pay $1 million each to San Diego State and seven other participants took a step forward Wednesday.
The Players Era Festival scheduled for Thanksgiving week in Las Vegas was formally announced after months of speculation as schools dropped out of other, less lucrative events next fall.
“We see a real opportunity to create innovative, early-season college basketball tournaments,” a newly created Players Era website said. “Fans who are typically tuning in only once March rolls around can have a reason to engage year-round, and we believe there is an appetite for meaningful basketball outside of the postseason tournament.
“We also see a way to support college basketball’s evolution towards a more equitable model for the players, who we believe deserve fair compensation.”
The “festival” is technically two four-team MTEs, or multi-team events that teams can enter once per year during the nonconference portion of the season. SDSU is grouped with Oregon, Creighton and Texas A&M. The other group has Alabama, Houston, Notre Dame and Rutgers.
The Aztecs will play three games in a round-robin format instead of a traditional bracketed tournament, meaning it will face the other three teams in its MTE. The opener reportedly will be against Texas A&M, followed by games against Oregon and Creighton in some order.
The Aztecs know Creighton well, having faced the Bluejays in a 2019 MTE in Las Vegas and then in the 2022 and 2023 NCAA Tournaments. They last met Oregon in 1997 and have never played Texas A&M in men’s basketball.
It adds to an already challenging nonconference schedule for what figures to be a young SDSU roster that must replace all five starters from its Sweet 16 run in the NCAA Tournament. The Aztecs will host Gonzaga at Viejas Arena in the back half of a home-and-home series and Cal at San Jose’s SAP Center on Dec. 21.
The Las Vegas event is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 26, 27 and 29, with an off day on Thanksgiving, but those dates haven’t been finalized. That’s probably because a broadcast partner hasn’t been finalized, and it may want games on Thanksgiving.
A site hasn’t been announced, either. The event is aligned with MGM Resorts International to use one of its three Las Vegas venues: T-Mobile Arena, MGM Grand Garden Arena or Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort.
SDSU committed to play in the Players Era Festival for three years. The plan is to expand to 18 teams in 2025, with Gonzaga, Michigan, St. John’s, Syracuse and Saint Joseph’s already in. Duke, Kansas and Virginia reportedly are targeted as well.
The financial backing comes from RedBird International Media Investments, which has ties to the wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.
Nonconference college basketball tournaments typically are created to fill television slots during the holidays at the expense of large crowds. The Players Era Festival seeks to reshape the market with investors willing to lose money initially to achieve a long-term vision.
“The debut in-season tournaments at the Players Era Festival will coincide with the opportunity for each team to engage in at least $1 million of NIL activities separate from competition,” the website said. “In addition to an innovative format designed to invigorate early season tournament competition before the start of conference play, there will also be live music, financial education programs and multiple on-call NIL opportunities for players.”
Most of the teams scheduled to participate this November had to extricate themselves from prior commitments in 2024-25. The Aztecs were supposed to play in the four-team Acrisure Classic in the Palm Springs area over Thanksgiving with USC, Saint Mary’s and Arizona State; a revised field has New Mexico as the Mountain West representative instead.
Notre Dame was in the Rady Children’s Invitational at UCSD’s LionTree Arena, which sources said had a $200,000 buyout clause in the contract. The Irish were replaced by North Carolina State.
The Aztecs also had been invited to play in the Maui Invitational in 2026 but will pass on that for the Players Era Festival and the prospect of $1 million per year pledged to each entrant’s NIL collective plus up to another $1 million for the winner.
“We’re excited about it,” Jeff Smith, the founder of the MESA Foundation, SDSU’s NIL collective for basketball, said last month. “It’s huge for us. … It comes at a really, really opportune time for MESA and Aztec NIL efforts. It will help us in a big way as we plan for 2025-26 and beyond.”
