There’s a new player in the game of early season college basketball events, and it has disrupted the typical Thanksgiving week highlights like the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis. While those tournaments are still happening, the best field is now at the 2025 Players Era Festival, an event that puts cold hard cash in the NIL purses of its participants and offers resume-boosting opportunities months before Selection Sunday.
The Players Era Festival debuted last season as an eight-team tournament that featured an epic final when Oregon defeated Alabama. The million-dollar guarantees to every participant sounded too good to be true to some, but every program ended up being paid what they were promised. The Players Era Festival has now expanded to 18 men’s teams, and also includes four women’s teams for the first time. It’s not a traditional bracket, but instead splits the men’s teams into two groups of nine before expanding to 32 teams next year.
Monday Nov. 24 and Tuesday Nov. 25 are loaded with great men’s college basketball matchups from noon until after midnight. The top finisher in each group will meet on Wednesday for the championship game. Here’s a look at the upcoming games:
The winner of the pods ahead of the championship game will be determined by overall record, and there’s matchups for third place and every other consolation game included, too. The lowest-finishing teams will conclude the tournament on Thursday. Here’s what the tiebreaker order looks like:
We’ll update the Wednesday and Thursday schedule once it’s announced. Here’s the schedule for the 2025 Players Era Festival for now.
Players Era Festival money
Competing in the Players Era Festival guarantees at least $1 million for every team’s NIL funds. There’s another $1 million up for grabs based on how teams perform.
Men’s Players Era schedule
Additional men’s matchups will air Nov. 26 and Nov. 27 based on the first two days of competition.
