Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim (35) leaves the floor in the final minutes of the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Florida State during the Atlantic Coast Conference men’s tournament, Wednesday, March 9, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
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Since founding The Basketball Tournament (TBT) in 2014, Jon Mugar has made small tweaks to its format. This year, TBT is undergoing its biggest change, even as the event recently secured a two-year media rights extension with Fox Sports that should keep it nationally relevant in a crowded sports landscape.
The 2026 version of TBT will have 16 teams, down from 64 in recent years. And it will no longer be a true single-elimination format, as the first round will feature four best-of-three games series with eight college alumni teams. The other eight teams will each pay an entrance fee of $125,000 to $250,000 to participate and compete in Las Vegas.
The winner of the alumni bracket will host the non-alumni winner in the championship game on Aug. 2 on Fox. The prize money has doubled from $1 million to $2 million, as well, with the winning team splitting the money and no other team getting paid, as has been the case since the event’s inception.
“It’s really the evolution of the product and what’s resonating with fans,” said Mugar, a former comedy writer who is currently CEO of Mugar Enterprises, Inc., a company that has investments in commercial real estate and entertainment assets. “We’re constantly making adjustments to the product and ditching what doesn’t work and leaning into what does work.”
When Mugar launched TBT, it was a novel concept in the U.S., and fans and business partners were skeptical. Back then, 32 teams consisting primarily of former college players and overseas professionals competed in a single-elimination format that was similar to the NCAA tournament. An alumni team from Notre Dame won the inaugural TBT and the winner-takes-all, $500,000 prize.
The next year in 2015, TBT expanded to 97 teams and had a $1 million prize, which increased to $2 million from 2016 through 2019, during which the field had between 64 and 72 teams. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, TBT had 24 teams playing all of the games in Columbus, Ohio, in a bubble environment for $1 million.
For the past five years, TBT had 64 teams competing for $1 million and held the event at regional sites across the U.S., primarily at college arenas. As Mugar and his colleagues planned for this year’s TBT, they decided to make changes to more closely resemble The Soccer Tournament (TST), an event Mugar created in 2022.
TST features several notable players who compete or captain teams in a 7-on-7, winner-takes-all format. Each of the games takes place over less than a week at the Wakefield Soccer Park in Cary, N.C., making it easier logistically and creating a competitive environment. This year, there will be men’s, women’s and mixed tournaments from May 27 through June 1, each with a $1 million prize. TST has signed an agreement to hold the event in Cary through 2029 and has a media rights deal with ESPN.
“The Soccer Tournament is playing a huge role in our modification to basketball,” Mugar said. “It’s a huge reason why we’re separating the bracket the way we are. In addition to the explosion of college interest in our event, we know how to provide a great festival experience. I think this is just the beginning of that non-alumni side of the (TBT) bracket, being in one location, being able to deliver a very unique experience to participants and fans.”
The eight-team college bracket in TBT will feature alumni teams from Kentucky against Louisville from July 18-20, alumni from Kansas against Kansas State and Syracuse against Seton Hall from July 21-24 and alumni from Wichita State against New Mexico from July 20-24. The teams will each host a game, while the third games (if necessary) will be held at Kentucky, Kansas State, Wichita State and Syracuse.
The four winners will then face off on July 26 and 27, with the two remaining teams competing on July 29 for the right to host the championship game against the winner of the non-alumni bracket, which will feature eight teams consisting primarily of former college and current professional players.
Fox will televise 20 TBT games on its main channel as well as FS1 and FS2. This will be the third year Fox is televising TBT games. The event previously had a deal with ESPN.
TBT has already secured six non-alumni teams, including two teams captained by former NBA guard Baron Davis and former Major League Baseball player Dee Gordon. Those six teams each paid a $125,000 entrance fee, while the seventh team will pay $175,000 and the eighth team will pay $250,000.
The non-alumni bracket will have a single-elimination format and be held at the M Resort in Las Vegas from July 22-30 shortly after the NBA Summer League ends in the same city.
For the college alumni teams, TBT has instituted a new rule where at least seven of the 11 players on the roster must have played for the school. Players participating include former college stars such as Michael Beasley (Kansas State), Willie Cauley-Stein (Kentucky), Frank Mason III (Kansas), Russ Smith (Louisville), Donovan Dent (New Mexico), Isaiah Whitehead (Seton Hall) and Buddy Boeheim (Syracuse).
Mugar said he hopes current college teams will someday field teams in TBT, especially as they seek to pay players via Name, Image and Likeness deals, although they would need approval from the NCAA and their compliance departments. He is open to other changes, as well.
“We’re always modifying,” Mugar said. “Obviously this is a very abrupt change for us, and we’ll definitely learn from it, but we’re excited, and the feedback so far is really good. But we can never really say for sure until you see it play out.”