Eight Big 12 teams are now booked for the 2026 Players Era Championship in Las Vegas next season. Kansas State, TCU, Texas Tech, and West Virginia will join prior invitees Baylor, Houston, Iowa State and Kansas in representing half the conference for the event’s third edition in the Southwest.
The tournament expanded to 16 teams in November of 2025, and each school took home at least $1 million in NIL compensation. Players Era is set to unveil more information regarding this year’s tournament “in the coming weeks,” according to the official press release from the Big 12.
The Players Era, which touts itself as a “basketball brand built around men’s and women’s championships in Las Vegas,” is clearly in the business of turning itself into the premier preseason tournament. There’s a ton of them, and one focused on NIL, and likely well over 16 teams next season, is going to get eyeballs.
Brett Yormark and the Big 12 now have a larger stake in Las Vegas, too. The conference moved its football media event to Sin City from Arlington in 2024 and has a $50 million equity deal with Players Era and founder Seth Berger.
Now, the natural fear here for Kansas City folks is whether this is another inch toward Las Vegas for the Big 12’s men’s basketball tournament after 2031, when the conference’s extension with the Kansas City Sports Commission ends.
The obvious difference here is that Players Era is putting forth a national event, while eight of the Big 12’s 16 schools share the same time zone. But the conference is already five schools deep into mountain time, and that number could look much higher should the maps realign further in five years.
Las Vegas, which already hosts the NBA Cup finals and the league’s Summer League stops, is also a strong candidate for a professional team should the league expand. It’s only natural that the city’s biggest players in entertainment would pursue college basketball to underpin those ambitions.
