How much NIL compensation Tennessee basketball gets for top-four finish at Players Era

LAS VEGAS – Tennessee basketball will receive additional name, image and likeness compensation as one of the top four teams of the Players Era Festival.

The No. 16 Vols (7-0) upset No. 2 Houston 76-73 on Nov. 25 to go 2-0 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in the Players Era Festival. Tennessee will play Kansas (5-2) in the third-place game on Nov. 26 (7 p.m. ET, TNT).

Seth Berger, the CEO of the Players Era Festival, said the winners and losers of the championship game and third-place game will all receive additional NIL compensation. The champion will receive an additional $1 million and the runner-up will earn $500,000. The third-place game winner will take home $300,000 and the loser will get $200,000.

On average, all 18 teams in the Players Era Festival this year will receive over $1 million in NIL compensation, according to Berger. All players are required to participate in legitimate NIL opportunities in Las Vegas all week, from activations, marketing services and social media postings to meet fair-market value.

"I want to be clear that there is no money on the line in terms of playing in competition," Berger said. "That is not what the event is about."

Berger said last year when Oregon won the tournament, they produced additional NIL content with the athletes on the team in order to receive the additional compensation.

The Players Era Festival is set to expand to 32 teams next year, which Berger called "the perfect size."

Berger said the men's event is profitable this year. The women's event, which is playing its inaugural four-team tournament, will be a "slight loss," Berger said, similar to how the men's event barely broke even in its inaugural year in 2024.

"We wanted to start Players Era with the first goal of meaningfully compensating players for their NILs within the guidelines of then the NCAA, now the CSC. So first and foremost, we didn't start Players Era with the goal to make money," Berger said. "So the combination of all the economics of Players Era have created, already in year two, a profitable men's event, which is way faster and way earlier than we thought."

Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: [email protected]; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social‬. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: How much NIL compensation Tennessee basketball earned at Players Era