Overtime Elite, a newly-formed basketball league, will compete with college teams and the NBA G League for the services of top high school players, Kevin Draper of The New York Times reports.
Sports media company Overtime will seek to stock its league with approximately 30 players, some as young as 16 years old, by offering a minimum of $100K. Participants could also receive signing bonuses as well as shares in Overtime’s larger business.
The company will provide health and disability insurance, as well as an additional $100K in college scholarship money for players who choose not to play professionally. Anyone who joins the league would forfeit their eligibility to play high school or college basketball.
Last year, the G League became a stronger competitor to the NCAA for the projected one-and-done players coming out of high school. The league formed the Ignite Team, comprised mainly of top prospects, with financial enticements of $500K or more per player.
The new Overtime Elite will be located in one unnamed city, where players will live and train together. An educational support staff will assist in helping the players receive their diplomas.
The basketball operations division will be headed by former 76ers and Kings executive Brandon Williams. Aaron Ryan, who previously worked in the NBA league office, will serve as the league’s commissioner.
I hope they are getting the rights to film everything. A dirty underside of the business behind basketball documentary would be great.
league name needs work
Sounds like the NCAA will eventually be forced to pay players to remain competitive.
Great idea!
Those kids need to be paid & to play against real competition!
At least G-League is better than NCAA!
Nature abhors a vacuum. NCAA has created one. If they care about the people like they say then they will pay otherwise there is enough money around doing nothing to compete with them. Maybe the NCAA will come to rely on the 4 year player again as the one and dones are drawn to better options where they get paid and don’t have to listen to petty despots.
Or college basketball will cease to exist in 2o or 30 years.
No it will still excist just wont have the top tier talent
And will still be more popular than the G League. These guys are just killing the opportunity to build their brand name for free in college hoops. The first weekend of March Madness draws more viewers than even the NBA Finals, and probably more that every G League game combined.
Look at Kevin Durant. He was a notable recruit, but not exactly a household name. But he used his one year at Texas to become a legit superstar. He may have become the same big name eventually going a minor league route, but there is no way he would have had such a head start. Same with Zion.
I think people might forget that College Basketball exists outside of the top end of D1
Interesting. However, let’s see how long this lasts.
It won’t.
About as long as the Alliance of American Football or the 2nd iteration of the XFL
College basketball does not matter anymore. Players can play overseas or play in new leagues to get recognition. Lavar Ball was right.
What matters is what gets TV contracts. Outside of top leagues and maybe advertising for colleges, BB players don’t have much market value. This business will fold like others.
That “educational support staff” has its work cut out for themselves.
Forfeiting their education…every player will sound like Flavor Flav.
Happened before and failed. If it makes past 2 years I would be surprised. On a marketing stand point they should have the league in cities that don’t have a NBA team and play during the summer not to compete against the NBA.
A 30 player league? How’s that gonna work. 2 teams with 8 players and 2 with 7?
Unless they come up with a better idea than March Madness, this new league nor the G League will ever take down the NCAA. 99% of NCAA players are not going pro. Players come and players go. The NCAA survived missing out on LeBron and Kobe, it’ll be fine without any of these guys.
They can’t beat the NCAA on built in fan base (students, alumni and regional support) but they could appeal to players via $, competition and player development. The NCAA is not the only bball that the NBA scouts. Build it and they will scout it if it has talent.
This is akin to what Europe does with their soccer academies and the like. They take young elite talent (even Americans) and develop them until they are good enough to compete on their lower level professional clubs (think G league) and hopefully on the first division clubs eventually. It is coming more and more no matter what the NCAA does. Skip having a kid not get comperiruin n in high school. It will probably come to football eventually. It already has in a sense. Think the IMG Academies of the world.
Why would any real talent chance injury. Just another way to take advantage of young minds. Any real talent already has a venue. You can play in Europe at 16. You can play for real money after HS. I agree with Rocket Homer. NCAA better wake up. Time to compensate your talent. Why should coaches make all the money.
Brandon Williams is the Sacto exec who pushed to get Bagley to start over Bjelica a few years back, right after Bagley was drafted. The controversy still exists as Bagley is still off-and-on, and benched Bjelica waits to be traded.
Obviously Williams likes youth! There’s probably an empowerment theme with the league too.
It’s not a horible idea but they will likely try to do too much and go broke. $100k for scholarships?— try to collect that. They should just go for the desperate or attention-grabbing kids, or suburban kids whose parents got frustrated with regular schools and can support them.