MTE's - or multi-team events - have been a staple of college basketball regular seasons for a long time. Recently, however, with the influx of NIL and revenue sharing into the sport, they've begun to change.
While events like the Maui Invitational have long been the most coveted for major programs, the creation of the Players Era Festival, which promised in its first year a $1 million prize to the winning team in 2024, quickly took the top spot.
It was only a matter of time before other events came forward with offers of major paydays.
Next on the docket appears to be the "Diamond Cup", which is projected to have a blue blood-laden eight-team field featuring Arizona, Gonzaga, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, and UConn, as reported by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.
Conspicuously missing, however, is Duke. It's tough to have a "blue blood" tournament without the biggest brand in college basketball, after all.
Norlander explains in the article why Jon Scheyer and Duke aren't in it.
Duke chose its Amazon Prime mega-deal over the Diamond Cup MTE
Diamond Cup creator Mike Cragg, a former Athletic Director at St. John's, had Duke in mind immediately when he was coming up with the event. In fact, Cragg worked in Duke's athletic department before moving on to St. John's.
According to Norlander, while Duke and Cragg were engaged in talks for the tournament for a while, Scheyer eventually pivoted to an opportunity with Amazon, one that promises to pay more than the $4 million per year the Diamond Cup is reportedly offering the schools:
"Flash forward to May 2026 and Duke has its own three-game deal with Amazon Prime Video in the years ahead, Norlander writes. "In order for Scheyer and Duke to pursue that deal, it had to make financial sense if it was going to pivot off the Diamond Cup. And since the Diamond Cup was pitching schools on more than $4 million per year, it's believed Duke's deal with Amazon will pay north of $5 million per season on that multi-year deal. The Blue Devils announced neutral-site games for the 2026-27 season against UConn (in Las Vegas), Michigan (in New York City) and Gonzaga (in Detroit)."
Why not both, you might ask?
According to the deal Duke signed with ESPN in order to facilitate this landmark agreement with Amazon, the Blue Devils cannot participate in any MTE's over the next two seasons that are not affiliated with ESPN, per Norlander.
That means Duke could still play in MTEs such as the NIT Season Tip-Off, Jimmy V Classic, State Farm Champions Classic, and now the Players Era Festival, which is moving to ESPN for 2026 and beyond.
So while it would be nice to play in the brand new Diamond Cup, which will undoubtedly drum up plenty of interest nationally, Scheyer and Duke will happily count their money from the Amazon payday and find another big-time early-season tournament to participate in.
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