That has changed in 2025.
“Right now, we operate in six-month increments,” Sullivan said, “so it’s changing that fast.”
Dayton will play in the ESPN Events Invitational this week at the State Farm Field House at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Kissimmee, Fla. The Flyers face Georgetown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and then No. 8 Brigham Young or the University of Miami at 7 or 9:30 p.m. Friday.
Dayton has played in the same four tournaments twice in coach Anthony Grant’s nine seasons: the Charleston Classic (2017 and 2023); the Battle 4 Atlantis (2018 and 2022); the Maui Invitational (2019 and 2024); and the ESPN Events Invitational (2021 and 2025).
Dayton was scheduled to play in the Myrtle Beach Invitational in 2020, but the pandemic transformed the schedule that season. That’s the only year since 2010 Dayton didn’t play in a traditional eight-team multi-team event, though the ESPN Events Invitational became a four-team tournament this year.
Where Dayton will play in 2026 is still up in the air for a number of reasons, including shifting scheduling strategies during the revenue-sharing era.
“Dayton has typically been in demand,” Sullivan said. “Our fans travel. We’ve performed well in (the November tournaments). But there’s so much unknown that I couldn’t give you an answer for next year yet.”
The new tournament drawing teams away from the traditional events is the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, Nev. The event had eight teams last year and has 18 teams this year. Next year, it plans to expand to 32 teams.
Teams in the Players Era Festival receive, on average, $1 million to distribute among the players. The championship team earns an extra $1 million. It’s considered name, image and likeness compensation, meaning it doesn’t count against the $20.5 million salary cap in the first year of the revenue-sharing era.
Teams like Auburn, Oregon, Notre Dame, etc. spend most of that $20.5 million on their football programs.
“I think they’ve really got to figure out the money from these events,” Sullivan said. “Is it considered institutional money, or is it above-the-cap money that is paid directly to players? The schools that are cap-constrained are approaching the cap with their football team and are looking for as many legitimate ways to get money that does not count toward that cap as possible. I think that’s what’s dictating behavior.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Sullivan said he has had a couple conversations with Seth Berger, the CEO and founder of the event, but Dayton has not been offered a spot in the 2026 event — at least not yet.
“I definitely keep in touch with them,” Sullivan said, “so I wouldn’t rule anything out. We pursue everything all day, every day.”
San Diego State, of the Mountain West Conference, is the only program outside the top five conferences in the 2025 tournament. Saint Joseph’s, an Atlantic 10 Conference member like Dayton, was scheduled to participate until it lost its coach, Billy Lange, in September, when the invitation was withdrawn.
Eight of the 18 teams in the 2025 field are ranked in the Associated Press top-25 poll this week. Berger told The Athletic he has filled 26 of the 32 spots in the 2026 field.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
In picking where it plays in the November tournament, Dayton has always first sought events that provide matchups against programs contending for NCAA tournament at-large bids.
Last year at the Maui Invitational, Dayton played three such programs, losing to North Carolina and Iowa before beating Connecticut. Two years ago at the Charleston Classic, Dayton also played three strong programs, beating LSU and St. John’s before losing to Houston. Dayton has twice played Kansas in recent years (2019 in Maui and 2021 in the ESPN Events Invitational).
None of those teams would have scheduled a home-and-home series with Dayton, Sullivan said. Playing them in multi-team events is the only way Dayton can get them on the schedule.
According to Sullivan, the other factors considered in the past were:
• Will Dayton fans travel to the event? ... Of course, they’ll travel to the ends of the Earth to see the Flyers.
• And what kind of national television exposure will Dayton get?
Now the financial gains or losses of playing in these tournaments have to be considered. Ohio State withdrew from the Battle 4 Atlantis this year so it could play more home games, increasing revenue that it can use to pay players.
“Currently, there’s an NIL component to scheduling, and we’ve had to be aggressive in scheduling to help in that area,” Ohio State coach Jake Diebler told Adam Jardy, of the Columbus Dispatch. “Until some things change with the fabric of those traditional (multi-team events), you’re going to see some different avenues pop up, and you’re going to see teams explore other avenues because there’s just too much that goes with them.
“If we can boost our NIL or boost whatever by looking at some other games, strength of schedule, all of that stuff, you’ve got to take into consideration all of those things. That’s what we did.”
A change in scheduling rules will also affect scheduling strategies in future seasons. In past years, teams could play 31 games in the regular-season if they participated in a multi-team event. Starting in the 2026-27 season, the NCAA will permit teams to play as many as 32 games, whether they play in a MTE or not.
For Dayton, the No. 1 priority remains getting Quad 1 or 2 games on the schedule.
“At the end of the day, there’s only, on average, about six at-large teams outside the (power conferences) that get a chance,” Sullivan said, “In order to be one of those six or seven teams, you’ve got to have a volume of Quad 1 or 2 games.”
While some coaches have complained about playing three games in three days or three in four days at these events, that is not an issue for Dayton. Sullivan knows this time of year is the best time to fit the games into the schedule. Exams come in December. The Christmas holiday follows.
Playing on short rest is not something Dayton will shy away from.
“If the season were longer and spread out and you could have a day’s rest after playing North Carolina before playing Iowa State, we’d all take that,” Sullivan said, “but for us, that’s not something that I’m able to be picky about.”
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