The St. John’s basketball team has begun its preparations for the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas this week and if you aren’t familiar this event is taking over the early season college basketball schedule.
A tournament where teams are guaranteed $1 million in NIL for just showing up, with incentives to be earned along the way, is diluting the fields of the historic multi-team events (MTEs) like the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis.
However, the Players Era is the new hot thing, and it has already expanded from its first year to second year and is hoping to continue expand into the future.
This year, the 18-team field will be split into two ‘pods.’ The 10 teams playing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the eight teams playing at the Michelob ULTRA Arena.
Each program has its first two games predetermined against opponents from its pod. The to be determined third game is where things get tricky.
The team that finishes in first place in each pod will play each other in the overall Players Era Championship Game and the team that finishes in second place in each pod will play in the third-place game.
After that, the team that finishes in 3rd place in the Michelob ULTRA Arena pod will play the team that finishes in 4th place in that pod. The team that finishes in 5th will play the team that finishes in 6th, and so on.
The same is for the MGM Garden Arena pod. The team that finishes in 3rd will play the team that finishes in 4th, etc., etc.
So, there will only be two crossover games in the entire event between the Michelob ULTRA teams and the MGM Grand teams.
The full schedule of the Players Era Festival can be found here.
The teams in the Michelob ULTRA Arena pod are Creighton, Baylor, St. John’s, Iowa State, Auburn, Oregon, Michigan, and San Diego State.
Rutgers, Tennessee, Kansas, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Houston, Gonzaga, Alabama, UNLV, and Maryland are in the MGM Grand Arena pod.
If teams have the same record after two games point differential will be the primary tiebreaker. If the point differential is tied, points allowed, and point scored will be the secondary tiebreakers.
The Players Era Festival is set to be an awesome four days of basketball, even if it isn’t a traditional Feast Week tournament format.