The NCAA’s ongoing effort to streamline and deregulate its extensive bylaws is creating controversy in one specific corner of the college sports world. A new legislative proposal—already approved by the men’s and women’s basketball oversight committees, and currently under review by the Division I council—would dramatically harm the business of basketball multiple-team events (MTEs) and may effectively eliminate most neutral-site games. At least, that’s the warning from a long-time MTE organizer.
The Gazelle Group—a Princeton, N.J.-based sports marketing firm that has run college basketball events since 1995, and which once sued the NCAA over alleged antitrust violations related to those contests—sent a strongly worded letter last week to the D-I council, NCAA president Charlie Baker and NCAA senior VP Dan Gavitt, defending the current MTE system.
That system is now on the brink of transformation thanks to NCAA Proposal No. 2025-2, which would establish an across-the-board maximum of 32 regular-season contests for men’s and women’s basketball programs, regardless of whether they participate in MTEs. Currently, schools can play up to 31 regular-season games if they participate in a two- or three-game MTE, and up to 28 games for those that do not.
Under the NCAA’s current governance structure, the new plan will take effect in time for the 2026-27 academic year, unless the D-I council overturns the oversight committees’ recommendations. The council is slated to decide on its latest agenda items this week.
By doing away with the legislated incentive, the NCAA “will materially and significantly limit the opportunities for multiple team events to operate or exist,” The Gazelle Group president Rick Giles wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by Sportico. Attached to his letter was a spreadsheet analyzing 2,493 non-conference men’s basketball games from November to December 2024, which found that 82% of all neutral-site games were played as part of MTEs.
“Hoping these MTE games will be replaced on their own is a fool’s errand,” Giles wrote. “Over time, there have been fewer and fewer dynamic, high-profile non-conference match-ups outside of MTEs.”
He predicted that this will push schools to play more “guarantee” or “buy” games, ultimately weakening the NCAA Tournament by limiting the data available for the selection committees to properly choose and seed teams.
Giles also raised the question of whether the proposal would impact the settlement he and three other event operators reached with the NCAA two decades ago, after the association adopted rules that schools could participate in two “exempt events”—as they were then known—every four years. The plaintiffs originally won a permanent injunction from a federal judge, before it was overturned by on appeal. After the sides continued to litigate the dispute, they agreed to settle in late 2005. As part of the resolution, the NCAA moved for legislative changes that removed the two-in-four restrictions, which were ultimately adopted in 2006.
“I am not sure how the rule changes you are currently considering would affect that settlement, but I know that we would not want to endure a threat to that settlement or any further litigation again,” Giles wrote in his letter.
The Gazelle Group’s current MTE portfolio includes the Empire Classic, Legends Classic, Gotham Classic, Sunshine Slam and Boardwalk Battle. The company also runs the post-season College Basketball Invitational.
It remains unclear what, if any, valid legal claims MTE operators could bring against the NCAA over its decision to deregulate. An NCAA spokesperson declined to comment on Giles’ letter.
“This proposed legislation does not require anyone to change their regular-season schedule and provides simplicity and greater flexibility as teams review their team and scheduling needs each season,” Big West Conference commissioner Dan Butterly, chair of the men’s basketball oversight committee, said in a statement in March when his group formally proposed the measure.
Other MTE operators who spoke to Sportico shared a range of views on the matter, most of which were less ominous than Giles’. Mark Starsiak, senior vice president of Intersport, said in a phone interview that he was less concerned about the overall impact if the proposal than by how it was being “ram-rodded” through the process with little input from industry professionals.
Despite Intersport’s role in managing high-profile events such as the Greenbrier Tip-Off and Fort Meyers Tip-Off, Starsiak said he had to push his way into the conversation—one he ultimately saw as little more than a performative, box-checking exercise.
In February, the basketball oversight committees asked the NCAA to issue a blanket waiver for the 2025-26 season regarding a provision allowing only one team from each conference to participate in the same multi-team event (MTE) within a four-year period.
Around the same time, Starsiak noted that he and other tournament operators took part in individual calls with NCAA representatives. He had expected a chance to present their concerns collectively to NCAA leadership and the D-I council, but instead he found himself addressing a pair of staffers who, he said, appeared largely indifferent to the feedback.
“It was massively bush league and frustrating that they sent two mid-level employees to basically take notes,” Starsiak said. “We bear the burden of all the NCAA rule changes, and we are never at the table.”
Despite his frustrations with the process, Starsiak doesn’t think the proposed legislation spells the end for MTEs.
“Coaches are still going to need a window during the season where you can play two games in three days or three games in five,” he said. “You have Christmas [scheduling] rules and (final exams)—you are going to need a period where your schedule is condensed.”
There are 34 men’s basketball MTEs slated for the upcoming 2025-26 season, according to college hoops website, Blogging the Bracket, including at least 13 home-game MTEs hosted by schools.
Starsiak thinks the NCAA rule change “essentially kills” the need for the latter, at least when it comes to high-major and top-100-type programs.
“Unless that staff is so strapped, you are not going to hire a third-party to build it,” he said.
Dan Shell, owner of the Acrisure Classic held in Thousand Palms, Calif., said he thinks that his event and others will still have attractive selling points, even if their business model has to adapt.
“Teams are going to want experiences for their student-athletes and want to get more than one game at a time,” Shell, president of Total Sports Consulting, said. “It is hard to fill a 32-game schedule with just single games over the calendar. I think the financials are going to look different, and we’ll have to make them work in a way [for schools]. MTEs didn’t have to pay as much [before], because teams wanted to play that extra game each year. Teams won’t need to play in any of these, and operators like myself are going to have to make it attractive.”
Additionally, Shell noted that the proposed change could make it more challenging for MTEs to secure and monetize broadcast rights for their events.
MTE operators are already navigating a shifting landscape, including last year’s inauguration of the Players Era Festival, a Las Vegas-based event offering $1 million in NIL funds to each participating team.
In a phone interview, Players Era co-founder Seth Berger voiced strong support for the 32-game proposal.
“MTE operators, big and small, are here to serve the players, the coaches, and the fans, not the other way around,” Berger said. “We are supportive of whatever the NCAA wants to do to give more freedom to programs.”
Giles, however, argues that the proposal could have the opposite effect—limiting program flexibility by reducing both their options and opportunities.
He predicted that lower-tier Power Five schools, as well as programs outside the P5, will likely struggle to secure high-level opponents; athletes will lose out on trips to “warm-weather destinations and major metropolitan areas,” along with the NIL opportunities those experiences can bring; and college basketball will ultimately face a decline in interest in the early part of the season.
“Teams play games in MTEs that they would not otherwise play, and this produces matchups fans would not otherwise see,” Giles wrote to the D-I council. “This delivers viewership opportunities during non-conference play which would not otherwise exist.”