While other top programs have spent the offseason treating the transfer portal like an all-inclusive buffet, the Zags have, as always, remained deliberate. So far, just two portal additions—Adam Miller from Arizona State and Tyon Grant-Foster from Grand Canyon—plus one high school commit, Parker Jefferson. And though it’s not yet official, Mario Saint-Supery appears all but locked in. While other schools have committed to full NIL-fueled rebuilds, the Zags have been a little more intentional than most.

With the Zags, fit always matters more than pedigree, and the program’s adherence to this philosophy is what’s allowed Gonzaga to stay competitive despite being a fraction of the size of just about every other top 25 program.

The Zags have always operated at an NIL disadvantage, but this November, the team will participate in something entirely new to the basketball world. The Players Era Festival is more than another early-season multi-team event like Maui or the Battle 4 Atlantis. It marks an unprecedented structural shift in how programs like Gonzaga can leverage visibility and NIL support without needing a Power Five bankroll to do it.

What Is the Players Era Festival?

The Players Era Festival is a tournament and NIL event held in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving week. It’s built to give college players meaningful NIL opportunities while generating significant college basketball hype early in the season, meaning fans can watch some high-level tournament-style basketball months before March Madness.

Launched in 2024 with eight teams and $9 million in distributed NIL money, the Players Era Festival returns in 2025 with an expanded format and a wider reach. Both the men’s and women’s tournaments will be held in Vegas, with combined NIL payouts expected to exceed $24 million. The men’s side will host 18 programs, including Alabama, Kansas, Baylor, Houston, Michigan, Auburn, and Gonzaga. For the first time, fans will get to see a big field of the best schools in the country in November, and players will have real financial gains at stake in their tournament performance.

If the Festival goes according to plan, non-conference scheduling priorities for smaller schools like Gonzaga could shift dramatically in the coming years.

The event pairs group-stage competition with bracketed play, and all participating teams receive guaranteed NIL compensation for their players, facilitated by the Festival’s partnership with TheLinkU. The model is something brand new in college basketball. NIL dollars in this case aren’t tethered to a school’s alumni base or booster culture but are instead based on team performance. Last year’s tournament winner, the Oregon Ducks, were able to leave Vegas $1.5 million richer in NIL opportunities, and this year’s will leave with significantly more than that.

This is a critical development for schools like Gonzaga. With a total undergraduate enrollment of under 6,000 and a local market that, while passionate, lacks the economic scale of major metro areas, Gonzaga operates without many of the baked-in NIL advantages enjoyed by other top-25 programs. (Of the other 24 teams on ESPN’s preseason top 25, no team has a smaller enrollment. Duke comes in slightly larger by undergrad population, and after that comes Saint John’s, which boasts an enrollment of nearly 16,000 undergrads.) The Festival offers a rare chance to compete on a highly visible national stage early in the season and with a financial floor already in place—no donor blitz or marketing scramble required. Most importantly, no waiting around for the Big Dance for Gonzaga’s players to receive the media attention typically reserved only for the end of the season.

A Hard Truth

Some fans may bristle at the idea that Gonzaga’s NIL situation could be—or has already been—a limiting factor in its recruiting pitch. But any time a school as small as Gonzaga is competing for recruits with the likes of USC (20,000+ undergrads), Kentucky (roughly 24,000), or Texas (over 40,000), the reality of a school’s alumni network and donor base needs to be faced.

By way of painful reminder: Nik Khamenia (Duke), Kingston Flemmings (Houston), and Zoom Diallo (Washington) were all high school targets the Zags pursued aggressively and missed out on. From the transfer portal, GU was reportedly in the mix for—but also missed out on—Malik Thomas (to Virginia), Donovan Dent (to UCLA), Rodney Rice (to USC), Sam Lewis (to Virginia), Andrej Stojakovic (to Illinois), Tyson Eaglestaff (to West Virginia), Silas Demary Jr. (to UConn), Brendan Hausen (to Iowa), and Jordan Ross (to Georgia). All of whom committed elsewhere, to much larger schools, with presumably more NIL money and opportunity than what was available at Gonzaga.

This obviously doesn’t mean that NIL was the biggest factor in the recruitment for these dudes, or even the decisive one, but if the portal has shown us anything in the last few years, it’s that for many, many players, money talks. Loudly.

The Equalizer

That’s what makes the Players Era Festival such a landmark opportunity for the Zags. It’s not about free money; it’s about access to opportunity tied to actual performance. For schools without the massive coffers or big-time corporate sponsors lining up at the door, it creates a foothold—a chance to let basketball speak for itself and weld performance to tangible financial benefits.

The Roster That Fits

For a team like Gonzaga, visibility can be hard to come by in the early part of the season, and although Mark Few always slates a brutal non-conference tilt for his team, by January, much of the national media attention understandably shifts toward the Power Five schools and Blue Bloods. An 81–50 blowout over Portland is a hoot to tune in for if you’re a Zag fan, but it’s not exactly “Must-See TV” for the rest of the college basketball viewing world. The massive media market available to schools in the SEC, for example, is simply not something the Zags have ever been able to compete with, and the Players Era Tournament levels that playing early on and in a highly competitive field, if even just a little bit.

For the first time ever, Gonzaga has an NIL event tailored to reward their winning edge despite the school’s size and scale. Rolling into Vegas and winning the Players Era Festival against schools who have spent this portal cycle doing Scrooge McDuck backstrokes through their endless piles of NIL cash would be just about the most Mark Few thing of the NIL era.

Still Gonzaga

That’s precisely what’s made the last 25 years of Bulldog basketball one of the most compelling stories in all of sports. The fact that a school this size has been able to sustain this level of success in this changing financial landscape is, frankly, astonishing. The Players Era Festival offers another opportunity to prove to recruits that Big Money does not equal Big Wins while still directing some of that Big Money right into the pockets of its players.

Gonzaga’s alumni network and available local business partnerships may be dwarfed by those of other schools; no other program in the country also has two former players—Chet Holmgren (OKC) and Andrew Nembhard (Indiana)—playing starting minutes in this year’s NBA Finals. No massive media market. No pay-for-play cloak-and-dagger “brand partnerships.” Just structure, development, and results. The only other school with players on both NBA Finals rosters is Kentucky—a university that graduates about as many students each year as Gonzaga even enrolls. That comparison says a lot about just how far above its weight class Gonzaga has been punching.

This year’s Players Era Festival won’t crown a new national champion (Oregon somehow beat Alabama in last year’s championship matchup, after all), but it could very well help reshape the perception of what schools like Gonzaga can offer their players in 2025 and beyond. The Zags will never have the booster network and alumni base of Texas, Michigan, or Florida. That’s just a simple fact. Never. But year after year, the Zags have still found a way to stay competitive.

What the Players Era Festival offers is a rare opportunity to showcase that competitive edge while connecting dudes with legit financial opportunities. It’s an NIL move that still lets the basketball speak for itself.

Behind the pitching of its $1 million transfer NiJaree Canady, Texas Tech softball ended the powerhouse Oklahoma Sooners’ season Monday night. FOS reporter Amanda Christovich joins Baker Machado and Renee Washington on FOS Today to explain the NIL arms race and how the House v. NCAA settlement could throw a wrench in it.

Plus, Bussin’ With the Boys co-creator and host Will Compton explains his decision to leave Barstool for FanDuel, why it makes sense for some NFL players to retire early, and how his new podcast For the Dads came to life.

FOST also examines the importance of baseball managers and roasts the Orlando Magic’s new logo.

Privacy Manager

The Oklahoma softball dynasty is over, at least for now. Monday night, June 2, Texas Tech knocked off the Sooners to reach their first championship series. In the process, they ended Oklahoma’s run of four consecutive national titles.

How did Texas Tech knock off the four-time defending champs?

Like all champions, Oklahoma did not go quietly. Down to their final strike in the bottom of the 7th inning, the Sooners’ number nine hitter, Abigale Dayton, hit a two-run homer to tie the game at two. It was the only mistake Texas Tech superstar pitcher NiJaree Canady made all night.

Canady’s teammates didn’t flinch. They bailed her out in the bottom of the inning with a couple of hits and a walk-off sacrifice fly to win it 3-2. Head coach Gerry Glasco’s players had their “David versus Goliath” moment.

“That’s been our motto all year, our chance at forever,” Glasco said. “We can leave a legacy at Texas Tech that will be remembered forever in the minds of the people that are able to watch this ball club. I think that we’ve done that. I think our team has left a legacy that’ll be remembered forever.”

Why is NiJaree Canady in the spotlight?

The Red Raiders leaned on their own giant to get it done. Canady earned National Player of the Year honors at Stanford last season. She made headlines in the summer of 2024 when she transferred to Texas Tech, becoming the first softball player in history to sign a $1 million name, image and likeness deal.

Unbiased. Straight Facts.^TM

NiJaree Canady’s historic NIL deal came from The Matador Club, Texas Tech’s NIL collective, which offered a one-year, $1,050,024 contract.

All she’s done this season is post a 33-5 record with an ERA at 0.90. Canady has thrown every pitch for her team in this Women’s College World Series run. Canady was one strike away from holding the Sooners scoreless for the first time in 300 games, a streak that spans 6 years and counting. She was asked how they pulled it off.

“We just played for each other,” Canady said. “Honestly, I feel like a lot of people doubted us and a lot of people didn’t think we would get to this point. So, I think we just didn’t have any pressure on us. We just wanted to go out, play softball and play our game.”

Glasco said Canady’s leadership might be the ingredient that put his team over the top and relayed a conversation he had with her while recruiting the superstar to come to small-town Lubbock, Texas. 

“One of the things I kept telling her,” Glasco said. “Hey, if you come to Texas Tech and you take us to the World Series, your market value in advertisements, your shelf life will be seven, eight times more than if you went to a blue blood, like a UCLA, or an Alabama or Tennessee or Oklahoma. If you come here and you take this team to the World Series, there’s no comparison.”

What’s next for Oklahoma?

Coach Glasco also made sure to put his team’s win into perspective. He compared the Sooners to another all-time great program.

“What they’ve done is historic, legendary,” Glasco said. “When I was a kid, we grew up talking about John Wooden and UCLA basketball, and I still think of John Wooden and UCLA when I think of college basketball. That’s what Patty Gasso has done and what Oklahoma’s done, great champions.”

Patty Gasso shed some tears Monday. With 14 newcomers, she very nearly coached the Sooners to their sixth straight championship series. The record run of titles may be done but Gasso, who has eight national championships since 1995, says she has never thought about coaching a dynasty.

“Losing is not fun, but losing is life,” Gasso said. “We all lose at something. It’s hard, but it’s lessons learned from it. And I think that’s probably what’s most important for me.” 

The Red Raiders will meet rival Texas in the best-of-three championship series starting Wednesday, June 4, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in a rivalry referred to in college football as “The Battle For The Chancellor’s Spurs.” The Longhorns knocked Tennessee out of the tournament Tuesday, June 3. Both teams are hoping to win their first national title.