TNT Sports to broadcast new NIL-driven college basketball tournaments

TNT Sports has picked up another basketball property to boost its slate of live sports.

TNT Sports is the first U.S. broadcast partner of a new men’s college basketball event called the Players Era Festival, according to a news release from TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

During Thanksgiving Week, TNT, TBS, truTV and Max will air tournaments between eight college basketball teams, including Notre Dame, Alabama and Texas A&M. Each team will compete in two separate four-team tournaments, and play in a round-robin format across three days of competition.

The festival is the first event for Players Era, a company created this year to provide NCAA-sanctioned name, image and likeness opportunities for college basketball players. The company is guaranteeing at least $9 million in NIL deals to the players in 2024 for engaging in activities separate and apart from competition, and more than $50 million over the next three years.

NIL essentially describes college athletes’ ability to monetize their success and receive profits outside of school scholarships and benefits. The NCAA maintains NIL opportunities cannot be used as a recruiting inducement, or as payment tied to athletic performance, or “pay-for-play.”

The Players Era Festival is the latest title on TNT Sports’ basketball portfolio, which includes the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and 65 regular season Big East Conference basketball games .

TNT Sports has been active in picking up other sports properties in the last few months, including a 10-year deal to broadcast the French Open in the U.S., an in-season tournament with NASCAR and sublicensing early-rounds of College Football Playoff games starting this coming season.

In July, TNT Sports sued the NBA after the league rejected its offer to match Amazon Prime Video’s bid to broadcast the league’s games starting in the 2025 season. The suit was filed days after the league announced $77 billion agreements with Amazon, ESPN and NBC. The league told Warner Bros. Discovery it did not consider the bid a matching offer and stuck with Amazon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Players Era was launched by a nonfiction content studio called EverWonder, MGM Resorts International and Seth Berger, who is the co-founder of American footwear and clothing company AND1. Jeff Zucker, the former president of NBCUniversal, CNN and Turner Sports, is a backer of EverWonder.

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