IAN OREFICE: Just want to thank everyone for being here. We started working on this about 14, 15 months ago. So it's surreal to actually be here seeing the first game, being in the tunnel, watching the players getting hyped for this, means a lot.
And to actually see this manifest itself and come to life -- we had tremendous partners. But first want to thank the schools, thank the coaches, and everyone that really made this become a reality.
SETH BERGER: Yeah, again, echoing Ian, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for coming.
Seeing the players on the court today, the level of basketball, just reminded me why we're here. Everything we do at Players Era is putting players first and appreciating who they are. They're extraordinary and deserve every bit of NIL compensation that they receive.
I texted one of my kids, I have two sons playing college basketball now -- one is actually at his own NTV [phonetic] this week that we're going to miss -- I said during the San Diego State Creighton game, I said, what does it look like to you? He said, it looks like an eight-, nine-game in March Madness. It's amazing. That's literally the level of play that these kids are already bringing in November. So it's amazing obviously to watch great coaches. Thankful to the coaches for taking the risk with us.
The crew Warner Brothers Discovery brought, TNT Sports with Candace Parker, JB Long, Grant Hill is amazing. And MGM, just done an amazing job operating the event. Couldn't be more thankful and grateful to be here.
Q. With this implementation, is it more of a compromise with some of the criticism that NIL has taken for what athletes need to be given, just help them roll out and get more compensation for what was left over for the last couple of years? Has this been used as a bit of a compromise in terms of getting players what they deserved or due beforehand before NIL came, would you say this is long overdue?
SETH BERGER: I think Charlie Baker has done an amazing job as president of the NCAA in seeing what needs to happen in college sports and moving it forward at light speed.
Someone asked me the other day, are we disrupters? I actually said, no, I think Mr. Baker is the disrupter and we're following along his path.
I think he's created opportunities for groups like Players Era to exist to compensate players fairly for their NILs. We're big believers in college basketball. This is an undervalued asset and that the amount of money that these players are getting paid now is going to be really small in comparison to what's going to be coming in future years.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
SETH BERGER: Combination of the best teams that we had relationships with who would place their trust in us. So as you may know, I'm a high school coach. Anytime I get invited to an event, first question is: Who is running the event; do we know them? Because we're putting our school's name on that event.
So we looked out in terms of who was going to be active in the transfer portal, who was going to be bringing in great freshmen and who were great coaches.
Rutgers fit every one of those bills with Coach Pike and obviously with Dylan and Ace, and they did great in the transfer portal.
And for us Rutgers was an incredibly easy yes and an early yes and an early invite. With Coach Knight, we had a pre-existing relationship, known him for years.
So I think they were more willing to place their trust in us. For us, super easy yes for Rutgers and I think for them probably a super easy yes as well.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
SETH BERGER: You tell me. No, I mean, they're the No. 2 and No. 3 projected picks in the draft. I think you could argue Ace is already look like he might be No. 1 and Dylan might be No. 2.
Any college program that has the No. 1 and 2 picks in the draft, pretty good. There are not a ton of programs that can roll in with freshmen and compete with 24-year-olds. Rutgers has a chance to win a national championship.
IAN OREFICE: I think Rutgers also is a great example of how the schools were our best partners in pulling this together. When we first came up with the idea -- when Seth first called me about this in August of 2023, it took a lot of different forms to actually end up where we did.
Rutgers, I think, was there from almost the beginning, working with us, being collaborative with us, trying to figure out what is the right format, what is the right structure, how do we make this most impactful.
All of our schools were incredibly thankful for, but I think Rutgers specifically really worked with us to get to this point.
Q. I think you've got young players like that here, but wonder if you have a deeper appreciation for the older players who might be on the very -- this is a one chance to get the NIL bag, so to speak, that weren't there from the very beginning of this, for you, seeing those players capitalize on their name, image, likeness is more satisfying.
SETH BERGER: Last night at the gala, I had three Thanksgiving wishes, two for the players and one of the players.
And my first wish was that they are all making real money now and they should save and invest so they have breathing room and a nest egg when they enter real life. As you said, you could be 24 years old right now playing college basketball and it might be the last time you ever play in organized basketball and you have to go into real life.
If a kid is making $100,000 in NIL and he's able to save 80 of it, that's a big number for a 24-year-old entering the workforce.
Obviously we wouldn't be doing it if I didn't believe it, but I think it's long overdue, that the hours and hours and hours that college basketball players commit to their programs is rewarded with additional time for studies, additional time to graduate, fewer classes in the semester, all those things that are best for the players and ultimately the best is that they leave college with a nest egg and for Players Era to be part of that, it's amazing.
Q. What inspired you guys to do it like that, the different values (question focused ?
IAN OREFICE: The easy answer is the tag line of Players Era is every game matters, every minute matters. This is credit to Seth and the team. Steve Rosenberry, Rosey, we were trying to pay tribute to that belief. If you're trying to come up with a proof that every game matters, every minute, every hoop actually matters, this is the structure that really actually allows that to happen.
SETH BERGER: And to that point, San Diego State and Oregon tomorrow, the winner will be guaranteed the opportunity for an additional quarter million dollars in NIL compensation on Friday. They'll have to perform additional NIL services to receive the compensation. And the winner of that game will be competing for half a million dollars in additional NIL compensation.
Let me also just say that I'm 57, I've been watching college basketball probably since I was like 18, maybe 17. And San Diego State's defense is insane. Dutch can coach his ass off. That team plays as hard as you know what every time I watch them.
I watched them up there, and I know Creighton didn't have their point guard, but there was no open shot, multiple efforts on every single possession. It was super impressive.
Q. (General question about Las Vegas becoming a sports hotbed, with basketball growth)
SETH BERGER: Funny small world story. When my middle son was 12. He's currently at Lafayette. Originally played at (indiscernible) in San Diego. His team won the Division III National AU Championships in Virginia Beach. So for his birthday, I took him to the NBA Summer League, and at that point I knew Albert Hall from back in the day and (indiscernible) did an amazing job.
Back then we could get literally a courtside seat for being there. And Albert said I'll hook you up. And TJ was about 5'5", 80 pounds, sat and watched the summer league and the kids, they were throwing balls back and forth to my son. It was unbelievable.
And then you see what the NBA Summer League has become. You see what Vegas basketball has become. You see what the Aces have become. I think it's pretty clear Vegas is an amazing destination for basketball.
My bet is next year there will be a lot of people saying we're doing Thanksgiving in Vegas to go watch Players Era.
IAN OREFICE: I think if you look back at the origin of what we're trying to accomplish, being in a place like Vegas for us makes a lot of sense. If we're trying to create a festival-like atmosphere, I don't think there's better town on the planet right now that's doing that for sports. The energy they did for F1, what MGM did with F1, what Mark Davis and new ownership of the Raiders are doing, the Aces, Vegas is becoming a true sports town in a sports experience mentality.
So if you think about Players Era 2025, we have 18 of the best teams in the country. We talked about earlier, we have plans to expand Players Era into other spaces. Maybe one day we'll have a women's tournament. Maybe one day we'll do events in the summer, et cetera.
To be rooted in Vegas and to be able to bring that experience, we want to deliver for core basketball fans and we want to deliver for people that just love sports. If you spend a week somewhere, spend a week falling in love with a game, do it here with the Players Era and do it in Vegas.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
IAN OREFICE: To Seth's point, he said earlier, I don't think he's had a chance to watch any coverage yet. This not early season basketball. This is big championship basketball. We're biased, of course, but it has that feel.
TNT brought it with their production. The people we have calling the games. People that they have calling the games. This is big championship basketball.
And to think about what that is going to feel like with 18 of the best teams in the country next year, we're pumped about that.
And Players Era, we always talk about this, but Players Era has two north stars and it guides every decision we make: One, how do you deliver for the fans? How do you reinvigorate a fan base that delivers for core basketball fans and delivers for people that love March Madness. That's what you see with 18 teams.
The second pillar and the second north star for us is how do you create a more equitable model for the people that actually create the product. How do we get players paid?
We have $50 million of guaranteed NIL opportunities and compensation to players over the next three years. It's the largest commitment in the history of college basketball for NIL compensation.
Every decision we make is how do we deliver on those two core pieces for us.
SETH BERGER: I want to add one quick thing. Running an event like this with eight teams, growing to 18 teams, adding women's events, I knew -- I obviously knew how great TNT Sports is as a fan. I thought I knew how great MGM and Intersport were, the two partners helping us to run these events.
I had no idea the number of things -- I've been on the other side of this game as a coach. I roll in; I get my room key and I find out what time my team's practicing. On this side, I'm like, oh, my God, think about all the things that could go wrong.
We couldn't be operating this or growing it without MGM and Intersport. It's been awesome to partner with them.
Q. Question about format. I know it altered just a month ago because the NCAA changed some rules, but what do you sort of envision it to be next year?
SETH BERGER: Actually it's to the point that the NCAA has been great to work with. So one of the things in this process, when we started, every event operator said don't talk to the NCAA, don't tell them what you're doing.
We said the opposite. We said, wait a second, we're here to help college basketball players, why wouldn't they want to work with us? In fact, they've been amazing to work with. We had multiple Zooms and calls with the people at NCAA. They said for your event to be in compliance, you have to do ABC. We said, cool, we'll do ABC. And they said for the NIL compensation part of it to be in compliance, you have to do E and F. We said we're going to do E and F.
In my opinion, NCAA has made it so easy for event operators to figure out how to pay the players within NCAA regulations; they're telling us exactly what to do. We're doing exactly what they tell us to do.
So with the format, initially there's a rule that you can't have two teams from the same conference playing in the same MTE, so we had two separate brackets. As you know, they share a blanket waiver, and it enabled us to elevate our event.
That's to my point that I think that Mr. Baker sees that the more freedom they provide to operators, the better these events can be.
So just that change alone allows Players Era, and, by the way, other event operators that may beat us but be great for the kids to be more creative in how we put these events together.
We'll see how the event rolls out in terms of we're going to have two SECs or two Big Tens playing for a chip, we'll see. I think we could still have two Big Tens. So can't have two SECs playing for a chip, I don't think, right now.
Q. Going forward?
SETH BERGER: Yes, next year we'll have at least 18 teams. We'll be going to three-team pods. Each team will play two games within the pod. And then the teams will be re-seeded based on record, point differential, points scored, fewest points allowed, all those sorts of things.
Within those pods, we won't have teams from the same conference, just respecting the coaches' wishes not to play against each other -- and at least 18 teams next year.
Q. Three games or four games?
SETH BERGER: Three games. The games will most likely be between Monday and Friday. Again Thanksgiving week. Importantly, the kids will have at least one day off, if not two.
When we put this together, one of the things we looked at is what other folks have been doing. And the concept -- again, everything is for players first. The concept of three games back to back to back is really hard on the kids. And there's a lot of injury risk there. They don't necessarily get a chance to give not only their bodies but their brains a minute to breathe. The kids will have at least one if not two days next week off in between games.
Q. (General question about money distribution)?
SETH BERGER: No, it's from Players Era. So basically in our model we earn revenue from distribution and sponsorship. Players Era sends the money to the collectives. The collectives pay the kids. We don't pay the kids directly. We ship the money to the collectives.
Obviously, as you know, with the House settlement, those rules might change and the money might go directly to athletic departments who will pay the kids. Whatever the rules are, we'll continue to be within compliance.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports