The company just announced that they will be creating their own professional basketball league, targeted at the top-ranked high school basketball players in the country between ages 16 and 18 years old.
The players will have to forego their high school eligibility to play, where they will earn $100,000 per season. The league, called Overtime Elite (OTE), will even pay $100,000 to use towards college tuition if the player does not make it into the NBA or any other league.
Here are more details on the league:
OTE will operate out of one city (which will be announced at a later date) and will consist of up to 30 total players from across the world. The teams will play not only against each other, but against competition from American prep schools and other countries. The total number of teams that will make up the league and how rosters will be constructed was not disclosed.According to Ryan, some current players feel their high schools don't offer adequate academic and skills development and want to challenge current NCAA rules that don't allow them to profit from their likeness."This offering and opportunity not only gives you pro-caliber training and development in a facility that models and starts to simulate what life will be like in the NBA ... but it also provides a six-figure salary," said Ryan, who worked in the NBA for 22 years, including most recently as vice president of the NBA 2K league.In lieu of a traditional high school curriculum, the league will offer an academic program that it says will focus on "financial literacy, media training and social justice advocacy," according to a news release."Playing college basketball is great for some," Ryan said. "But let's recognize the fact that they play over 10,000 hours of basketball for free."Overtime, created in 2016, publishes basketball highlights, interviews with players from all levels of the sports and original content, including a series following top 2023 recruit Mikey Williams. Overtime investors include Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony and Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant, as was the late NBA commissioner David Stern.
This is a genius move by Overtime, in my opinion. The basketball prep-to-pro format is changing. We see the NBA G-League is spicing things up. It just creates a whole lot more problems for the NCAA and their one-and-done system.
I believe we may reach a point where the NBA may finally return to having players enter the draft straight out of high school. If it weren't for players like LaMelo Ball, I don't think we would see this Overtime league come up.
Best of luck to them.
