According to its working phrase, The Players Time Festival aims to “bring the Madness to November,” but it’s been generating a lot of intrigue and stress before yet 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.
Players Era has agreed to pay each of its participating teams ‘ affiliated NIL collectives$ 1 million annually in the amount of$ 50 million that it will spend on NIL funding for athletes who compete in its games. With eight teams scheduled to launch the inaugural festival in November, organizers are responsible for$ 8 million in NIL commitments alone, which is significantly more money than almost every other MTE generates in total revenue.

Players Era made a formal announcement on Tuesday regarding a three-year submission agreement with TNT Sports and the signing of a partnership with Publicis Sports, the French foreign PR firm’s National sports marketing division. Economic terms of the deals were not disclosed.
In a telephone interview this year, Players Era’s co-founders—former AND1 CEO Seth Berger and EverWonder Studios CEO Ian Orefice—sought to explain why their vision makes feeling, even if it flies in the face of business protocol. The key to understanding Players Time, according to its leaders, is to not see it as another event, but rather the grain of a college sports media company with incalculable detection possibilities.
Although Orefice kept its financial outlook ambiguous, it did state that Players Era had already made “eight figures” in revenue pledges for 2024 and that it would” not lose a lot of money in time one of the occurrence.”
Others in the hockey event industry have been violently scratching their heads over the splashy newcomer, and sometimes rolling their eyes at them, so that may come as a shock to them.
” Their math does n’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 significantly less.” Therefore, someone will need to finance a deficit in the neighborhood of$ 9 million to ensure that the players are compensated.
In 2021, Giles acknowledged paying UCLA and Gonzaga” considerably above-market costs” to participate in one of his MTEs, the Empire Classic in Las Vegas during the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, but says that there is” no evaluation” to what People Time is presently offering.
There will certainly be some resistance with those who are trying to protect a previous business model, Orefice said. We are proudly and persistently working toward a future where the players are legally compensated for their worth and that more people enjoy college basketball year round, despite the fact that our entrance has caused some disruptions.

In order to achieve this, Players Era has struck a conciliatory stance with the NCAA, which is arguably the biggest cause of stagnation when it comes to payment for school athletes.
In order to achieve this, both Orefice and Berger claim they have no intention of provoking the governing body of college basketball, nor that they have any ambitious plans for People Time that include a direct match with the NCAA.
Quite the opposite, in reality.
” We value the opportunity to get great companions”, Orefice said. ” If you think of our two main pillars—compensating people and growing the activity of basketball—the NCAA is a huge portion of that”.
Without especially addressing Players Century, an NCAA spokesperson said it is “generally available to our member organizations and function operators who request help on the application of NCAA account approved rules and regulations.”
According to Orefice,” I believe there are other gamers in the NIL area that operate through a rear door.” ” 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 help the NCAA”, Berger said. ” They’ve been wonderful to us in terms of helping … us live within their rules”.
Charlie Baker was praised by Berger, who described the NCAA president as “incredibly open and logical” regarding the industry’s changing landscape. Berger added that the NCAA’s’vernal meal ticket’ and Players Era’s fantastic ambitions for the future would certainly conflict.
” You do n’t mess with March Madness”, Berger said. ” In truth, we want to help March Madness”.
Players Era claims to operate on a totally different benchmark than whether any specific production made more money than it did.
” You can consider for start-ups in general, and particularly in school sports, adapt or die is really the mantra”, Orefice said. ” So when we look at what we’re building, we do n’t compare ourselves to other single, one-time-a-year, three-day-basketball tournaments”.
Others are n’t so sure.
” Like it or not, this marketplace can provide easy entry and easy exit if you do n’t do your due diligence”, Giles said. This event wo n’t occur in the future because the players wo n’t be paid, and the collectives will have to decide whether to file a lawsuit for the money owed. However, there is a history of team signing up to play in fresh or” one-off “events and not getting paid. More due dedication is important”.
Dan Shell, the game producer of the Acrisure Classic in Palm Springs, Calif., also expressed skepticism that People Time can be financially feasible.
” At least to this point in time, this is a very simple business in terms of the revenue streams and expenses: there are n’t many”, Shell said. Because these events must be very disciplined with their costs in order to generate even a reasonable income, the revenue streams are so limited that they are” simple to ticket sales and funding.”
San Diego State paid$ 150, 000 earlier this year to purchase itself from Players Era in exchange for the Acrisure Classic. ( Creighton, Texas A&amp, M and Notre Dame similarly got out of existing MTE commitments to be part of this year’s field. ) Shell claimed he has no animosity toward SDSU or Players Era, but that he has since increased the merger amounts for the new game’s cooperation 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 recently reported, People Time has contracted with Intersport, a advertising and marketing company, to control 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 who are good we try to stay friendly and working with. We just felt that we should work with Players Era to get the experience going with the support and visionary idea.
Berger anticipates that other MTEs may follow its example, but he thinks Players Era’s bold first move has safeguarded its future.
Berger and Orefice, who have known each other for 26 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. Prior to its most recent parent company’s filing for bankruptcy in 2021, Sequential Brands Group, the business was initially acquired by American Sporting Goods and then it was bought and sold numerous times.
In addition, Berger has spent the last 18 years coaching the boys ‘ varsity basketball team at Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a program that has produced a number of top college basketball prospects over the course of his tenure. Berger’s former players include two of his three sons, both of whom ended up playing Division I basketball.
Berger and his sons were having a dinner conversation last summer about the fast-paced state of the college basketball season’s fast-paced schedule and the undercapitalized commercial value of the pre-March period.
Why not start addressing both of these options at once by creating a pre-conference basketball event designed for paying players?
Berger, who had just left his position as president and COO of Time and Time Studios to become CEO of EverWonder, a young production company supported by Jeff Zucker’s RedBird IMI, presented the idea to Orefice. Soon, Orefice pitched the idea to Zucker, who he said was immediately supportive.
Zucker has since been actively involved in Players Era’s discussions with the NCAA and TNT Sports, according to Orefice, who stated that he is “more]serving in the role ] of a strategic advisor” on Players Era. ( Zucker did not respond to a comment-requesting text message. )
After Players Era opted out of negotiations with another distributor he declined to identify, the TNT partnership came together in the last month, according to Orefice.
Players Era intends to reveal its founding charity partner, title sponsor, and additional team commitments for 2025 in the coming weeks.
( This story has been updated in the fifth paragraph to correct EverWonder’s title and in the fourth-to-last paragraph to correct Time, as well as Orefice’s previous title. ) The length of time Orefice and Berger have known one another has also been changed in this story.