Louisville locked into 16-team bracket at Players Era Festival

ACC Basketball Tournament - First Round

After much uncertainty, it appears the Louisville men’s basketball team will indeed compete at the third annual Players Era Festival Tournament in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving week.

The event announced Thursday morning that it’s expanding to 24 teams in 2026, with two separate bracket-play tournaments over the course of two weeks in Vegas. The PEF has also struck a television deal with ESPN, which will televise all 37 games from the event on its family of networks.

“We couldn’t be more excited to forge this new partnership with ESPN, which will deliver an even larger platform for what has become the best college basketball tournament outside of March and create new opportunities to engage with fans across the country,” EverWonder CEO Ian Orefice said in a statement. “I also want to thank TNT Sports for giving us the opportunity to launch this signature showcase event; they have been outstanding partners over the past two years and played a tremendous role in our success.”

The week of Nov. 16 will feature the Players Era 8, with potential preseason No. 1 Florida headlining a field that will also include Houston, Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Rutgers and UNLV.

The Thanksgiving Week field will be headlined by reigning national champion Michigan, and will also feature the Cards, Alabama, Gonzaga, St. John’s Tennessee, Iowa State, Miami, Texas Tech, Baylor, Maryland, TCU, Oregon, Creighton, San Diego State and Kansas State.

Schedules, venues and other information about the event will be released later this offseason.

I hate how much this event is hurting Maui and Atlantis and the other early season MTEs, but four (I’m assuming it’ll be four) games against quality opponents and (potentially?) some additional NIL is too good of a deal for any program to pass up right now. This should be a great way to spend Feast Week.