Fred Hoiberg explains how Nebraska will split reward money from Crown Tournament

Nebraska left Vegas with $300,000 this weekend by winning the College Basketball Crown, the new postseason tournament with a purse meant for NIL. The Cornhuskers will now all get a share of that for their impact on this season.

Fred Hoiberg addressed the distribution of the winnings for the ‘Huskers following their 77-66 win over UCF in the championship game on Sunday. He said they will split the $300,000 evenly between all of the players on the roster, including those who may have played only limited action for the team this year.

“Yeah, the players will split, from this year’s roster, will split that evenly,” Hoiberg said. “And, you know, it’s, it’s almost, like, I think of it as a playoff bonus, you know, for the guys that were part of it this year, from your scout team guys all the way, you know, to your guys sitting out. Everybody had a part in this thing. And, you know, the guys that, even, um, the Jeff Grace and Henry Burt and, you know, Nick and Braden and Justin – you know, the guys that played the majority of their minutes on the scout team this year? That’s invaluable, what those guys do for your program.”

“So, yes, it will be evenly split between the entire roster,” said Hoiberg.

However, their pair of international players on the team in Rienk Mast (Netherlands) and Berke Büyüktuncel (Turkey) complicate that payout a bit. They’ll determine how they’ll be handling that later, though, as far as the earnings for their contributions.

“Uh, we’ll figure that out,” Hoiberg added. “Yeah, yeah.”

After missing the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, Nebraska won something in the postseason with the debut field of The Crown. They went 4-0 over last week with wins over Arizona State (86-78), Georgetown (81-69), Boise State (79-69), and UCF (77-66) to win the title and the prize money at the event. The Knights also won $100,000 as the runner-up while Boise State and Villanova each won $50,000 by making the semifinals for the total of $500,000 earned in that tournament for name, image, and likenesss.

Sin City paid out Nebraska (21-14) for winning it all in the debut year of The Crown. All of the ‘Huskers will enjoy those winnings based on these plans by the program in how they’ll now distribute all of it.