By Daniel Libit

Sports Investigative Reporter

With Middle East sovereign wealth monies increasingly reshaping the sports landscape, and university athletics departments growing ever more desperate for new revenue streams, it seemed inevitable those forces would converge in a college sports event staged on Arab soil.

Last May, Seth Berger, the co-founder of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, told Sportico that his group was looking to host another multi-team event (MTE) in the UAE during the 2026-27 season.

But Players Era appeared to have been beaten to the punch when, on Dec. 4, CBS Sports’ “College Basketball Insider” Jon Rothstein tweeted out that another Middle Eastern MTE was already well underway.

“Sources: The Royal Palm Invitational—a new early season tournament in college basketball—will debut in Dubai in November of 2026,” Rothstein wrote on X, adding, “Multiple power conference teams are expected to be involved.”



Rothstein provided no other details. The following day, the New York Post reported that St. John’s, coached by Rick Pitino, had declined an invitation to participate.

Since then, little has emerged publicly about the Royal Palm Invitational. The event’s website currently is a landing page that consists of only a logo and the catchphrase, “See you in the Desert,” while its X and Instagram accounts have yet to post any content. Conspicuous by its absence was the name of the person behind this ambitious new event—until now.

That promoter is Mark Jurich, son of the former Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, both of whom lost their jobs with the Cardinals in the wake of a college basketball player agent scandal that engulfed Pitino’s U of L team. Neither of the Juriches was implicated in wrongdoing.

After firing the elder Jurich for failures of department oversight, Louisville later paid him $4.5 million to avoid a breach-of-contract lawsuit. As part of their settlement, Jurich was given eight club-level season tickets to Cardinals football and men’s basketball games for the next two decades.

To date, Mark Jurich is perhaps best known nationally for the screed he emailed to Vince Tyra, his father’s successor as Louisville AD, in which he complained about the location of those seats.

In written responses to Sportico’s questions, Jurich said that he began exploring the concept of a new multi-team event in 2023, then traveled to Dubai in 2024 to meet with “venues and local stakeholders.”



Asked about the event’s status, Jurich described it in “an active development phase.”

“We have had formal discussions with multiple Division I programs, with contracts and letters of intent currently in circulation,” Jurich added. “On the commercial side, we are in advanced conversations with prospective sponsors, and discussions are ongoing regarding venue logistics and event operations in Dubai.”

As of right now, no broadcast agreements have been secured.

On paper, the younger Jurich would seem an unlikely candidate to execute a college basketball MTE in a previously untapped international market. Since commencing his consulting career in 2018, following his U of L ouster, Jurich has overseen just one comparable event: a single 2023 nonconference game between Arizona and Florida Atlantic in Las Vegas, branded as the Desert Classic.

That game was contracted through another Jurich-owned entity, Align Sports, and co-promoted by Craig Dilger, a Louisville-based attorney who has represented the university in multiple athletics-related matters. According to Jurich, Dilger is not involved in Royal Palm.

On the court, the Desert Classic produced a memorable result, with Florida Atlantic upsetting the No. 4-ranked Wildcats 96-95 in double overtime. Behind the scenes, however, multiple sources say the game was beset by logistical and financial issues, including difficulties in securing corporate sponsors and a television partner—and, ultimately, paying at least one of the teams.

Under the terms of its game contract, Arizona was due to receive a fee of $175,000. But so far Align Sports has not paid anything to the school.

A source with direct knowledge of the situation said that, in addition to being delinquent on the school’s payment, Jurich had asked Arizona in the weeks leading up to the game if it could draft some of the athletic department’s corporate partners into the event to make up for a sponsorship gap.



Asked about this, Jurich told Sportico: “The Desert Classic was operationally successful, but the event encountered significant commercial challenges late in the process after a third-party multimedia rights partner did not perform as expected. As a result, Align Sports faced financial shortfalls, and certain vendor and partner obligations—including with the University of Arizona and broadcast-related partners—remained unresolved following the event.”

Jurich added that his arrears have not yet led to any litigation and that he and Arizona are in ongoing discussions. An Arizona spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

FAU, meanwhile, ended up paying Align Sports $4,470 for its participation, after its $50,000 fee was offset against the cost of tickets the school ended up purchasing.

Aside from the Desert Classic, Jurich’s college sports work since Louisville has barely registered on the public radar.

“Much of my work prior to the Desert Classic was consultative and relationship-based, supporting schools and partners on event strategy, sponsorship development and media-related planning,” Jurich said. “That work was largely behind the scenes and not structured around public-facing announcements or owned events.”

The day before Rothstein tweeted out the news of the Royal Palm Invitational, Jurich sent an email, obtained by a public records request, to the basketball staff at North Carolina State providing an executive summary of the Royal Palm Invitational, which he said would “redefine the multi-team event landscape.”

According to the Dec. 3 email, the event will feature six teams who would play double-headers over the course of three days. Jurich wrote that there was already either “strong interest” or “contracts in motion” with Illinois, TCU, Wake Forest and Memphis. However, spokespeople for Illinois and TCU confirmed this week that their schools would not be participating, with TCU having recently announced it would be part of next season’s Players Era Championship instead. Representatives for Wake Forest and Memphis did not respond to requests for comment.



In his email, Jurich told NC State that participating teams would receive “financially competitive” payments, including guaranteed monies, travel reimbursements and NIL support, with opportunities for two athletes per team to receive additional activations.

A former All-American baseball player at Louisville, Jurich went on to play five seasons in the Atlanta Braves minor league system. In 2004, he began interning in Louisville’s athletic department, which his father had presided over since 1997, and eventually rose to become the senior associate athletic director. Mark Jurich’s career trajectory, according to a Louisville Courier-Journal investigation, included his receiving of undocumented pay increases and specially created job titles that raised nepotism concerns. Jurich at the time defended his work.

Those concerns extended to other family members, as well.

Haley Jurich—Tom’s daughter and Mark’s sister—had been hired by Adidas just months before Louisville signed a 10-year apparel agreement with the shoe company worth $160 million in August 2017. Haley insisted that despite the connections, she received the job on her own merits.

Tom Jurich was initially fired for cause in October 2017, with the school’s then-interim president accusing him of “ineffective management, divisive leadership and unprofessional conduct.” Mark Jurich was let go in February of 2018, along with two other athletics officials, as part of what was publicly characterized as a “restructuring” of the department.

Six months later, Jurich sent what would become his viral email to Tyra, accusing him of “dishonoring” his father and being “weaker than I thought.” Tyra remained as Louisville’s athletic director until his resignation in 2021.

Despite the controversy surrounding his family—and his father’s decision to relocate to Florida—Mark Jurich and his wife, Lainey, a former Louisville field hockey player, have remained in Louisville. By April 2018, the couple had formed The Jurich Group, a college sports-focused marketing firm that adopted the tagline, “When People Show You Who They Are, Believe Them.” Lainey, who previously worked in commercial real estate, was listed as the registered agent and manager of the Jurich Group LLC and Jurich LCC. Kentucky Secretary of State records show that neither of those are active.



In 2022, the Juriches created Align Sports with Dilger, who was listed as both the company’s organizer and member. Mark Jurich said Lainey is actively involved in the Jurich Group as a paid employee.

As they now seek to make a splash in the college events space, public records reflect mounting financial pressures for the couple. Jefferson (Ky.) County Clerk documents show that since 2024, at least three liens have been placed on the Juriches’ personal residence for debts owed to the State of Kentucky, Liberty Mutual Personal Insurance and Toyota Motor Credit Corporation, with the latter subsequently released.

“Those matters are personal and unrelated to Jurich Sports or the Royal Palm Invitational,” Mark Jurich said. “They are known, being addressed, and are either resolved or in the process of resolution through the appropriate channels.”

The couple also had a federal tax lien of $200,122 assessed in 2017, but Jurich said that has since been resolved.

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