Kansas head coach Bill Self watches as North Carolina State brings the ball up the court during the first half on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

The Kansas men’s basketball team could play neutral-site matchups in Las Vegas three out of four years if a report by The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman comes to fruition.

Goodman reported on Tuesday night that KU is expected to take part in the Players Era Festival tournament in Las Vegas next November, rather than the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego in which it was previously supposed to participate.

As opposed to a more traditional MTE like the San Diego event, the Players Era has drawn a great deal of public attention because it pays out $1 million or more in name, image and likeness funds to each participating team in exchange for various local sponsorship opportunities centered on the tournament.

The first edition of the event took place this year with eight schools at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and next year’s Players Era Festival is expected to feature significantly more teams — 15 are already signed on excluding KU, per the event’s website, and Goodman wrote on X that it will “expand to 20 or so.” The Rady Children’s event, meanwhile, would have featured KU along with Florida, Providence and Wisconsin, according to previous reporting by Jon Rothstein of College Hoops Today.

The reported schedule switch is consistent with recent remarks KU coach Bill Self has made in a variety of venues about the importance of scheduling in order to raise money for the athletic department, prioritizing opportunities to garner revenue-sharing dollars — with an eye toward the new system, House settlement pending, that will allow KU to share money directly with its student athletes — over elaborate and expensive “experience”-focused events like the Maui Invitational or the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

The Jayhawks did not participate in an extended multi-team event like either of those this season, instead opting for the Vegas Showdown that comprised one game against Duke at T-Mobile Arena and another against Furman at Allen Fieldhouse.

Between that Vegas Showdown, next year’s reported Players Era Festival and the 2027 Hall of Fame Series game against Indiana at Allegiant Stadium, KU will be spending plenty of time in Las Vegas in the years ahead.

The Jayhawks’ schedule for the 2025-26 campaign is also expected to include a Champions Classic matchup with Duke at Madison Square Garden, road dates at North Carolina and N.C. State, a neutral-site Border Showdown at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, and much more.