The landscape of early season tournaments that have headlined “Feast Week” has changed rather dramatically in recent years, threatening the cache of iconic events like the Maui Invitational. There’s been a strong push from coaches away from traditional eight-team bracketed events that used to be common and toward smaller or more structured events that give teams more certainty about their schedules. And at its core, these changes are about the two things shaping everything in college sports right now: money and control.
The disruptor in the market is the Players Era Festival, which in its second year has ballooned to 18 teams after having eight in its first edition last season. The Players Era model involves paying each participating team $1 million via NIL for the players, a significant cash infusion for schools scrambling to find additional dollars to boost their rosters each spring. Compare that to Maui, where schools usually lose money due to the significant travel costs, and financially it becomes a hard sell to choose Maui even with the historic nature of the tournament.
