The landscape of early season tournaments that have headlined “Feast Week” has changed rather dramatically in recent years, threatening the cache of iconic events like the Maui Invitational. There’s been a strong push from coaches away from traditional eight-team bracketed events that used to be common and toward smaller or more structured events that give teams more certainty about their schedules. And at its core, these changes are about the two things shaping in college sports right now: money and control. 

The disruptor in the market is the Players Era Festival, which in its second year has ballooned to 18 teams after having eight in its first edition last season. The Players Era model involves paying each participating team $1 million via NIL for the players, a significant cash infusion for schools scrambling to find additional dollars to boost their rosters each spring. Compare that to Maui, where schools usually money due to the significant travel costs, and financially it becomes a hard sell to choose Maui even with the historic nature of the tournament. 

And for some programs with elite fan bases, skipping out on early season tournaments altogether in exchange for more home games is often the best financial decision. Take UConn, for instance, whose head coach Dan Hurley said last year he would never do another three-game multiteam event. Instead of going to a tournament, the Huskies can play a marquee home game against Arizona and fill in the other two games with either lower-tier opponents or neutral/road series against other top competition. That could make UConn more money give it more control over who and when it plays its games.

Even before the Players Era threw a wrench in things, many coaches were already tired of these eight-team bracketed events. Playing three games in three or four days with limited prep time and no control of your opponent is not an appealing proposition to most coaches, especially in events where the range in quality of opponents ranges widely. 

An example is the 2023–24 Wake Forest team, which played in the eight-team Charleston Classic. Wake blew a six-point second-half lead to Utah in its tournament opener (a game that tipped well after 9 p.m. ET). By losing that game, the Demon Deacons then played Towson (which finished No. 146 in KenPom) the next day instead of Houston (No. 2). And for its third game, by being stuck in the loser’s bracket, Wake drew a middling LSU team instead of a stronger foe like St. John’s or Dayton. Was that the reason Wake was just on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble that season? Perhaps not, but it didn’t help matters. And notably, the Charleston Classic has modified its format to now feature two four-team brackets with a day off in between games. The stronger of the two brackets features four high-major teams; the weaker is three mid-majors plus Boston College. 

Essentially, while the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis provide big-time exposure, they give schools neither the financial windfall nor the scheduling control they desire. Just four top-30 KenPom teams as of Friday (Vanderbilt, NC State, USC, Saint Mary’s) are playing in a traditional eight-team bracketed event. Ten top-30 teams are in Players Era, which has a modified pool play format that at least means two of your three opponents are locked in before the event starts. 

So while traditional “Feast Week” isn’t dead, it’s certainly changing. If Players Era has its way, it will nearly double in size again next season to a 32-team event, further gobbling up teams in an attempt to own a small segment of the college hoops calendar. And that puts even more pressure on floundering events like Maui and Atlantis as they look to piece together competitive fields.