Nike is moving it's flagship girls basketball event to the Windy City in 2017 Copyright: palette7 / 123RF Stock Photo
The winds of change are in the air as Nike looks to the Windy City for the future of Nike Nationals. This week and weekend Nike meets with its 32 team directors to set the course for the 2017 club season.
In recent years the biggest changes on the Nike circuit have been with regards to the field of 32 sponsored teams. There is one change this year as Texas United has been released and Lady Pro Skills, also from Texas, has joined the field. That’s not all that’s changing in 2017 from the locations of the Girls Elite Youth Basketball League (GEYBL) to the dates and location of its flagship tournament, Nike Nationals.
The exact reasoning for all this change isn’t full known because Nike public relations policies prohibit Tony Dorado, Nike’s national manager of high school ball, and Jill Noe, the Girls Elite Youth Rep, from commenting.
Speculation aside, the changes are seemingly massive and could rearrange the landscape of the July evaluation period. Multiple team sources have confirmed the new league schedule.
Dates & Locations
The only event that is the same in terms of dates and locations is in April, The Boo Williams Nike Invitational. The July stops will still be split between two events, though the locations from prior years and the dates have changed.
GEYBL 1st stop (32 sponsored teams all at one event)
Boo Williams Nike Invitational – Hampton, Virginia – April 28-30, 2017
GEYBL 2nd stop (32 sponsored teams split between two events)
NEW
Run for the Roses – Louisville, Kentucky – July 5-8, 2017
USJN Premier Showcase Midwest – Indianapolis, Indiana – July 5-8, 2017
OLD
Nike Invitational Tournament – Chicago, Illinois -- July 10-12
Battle in the Boro – Nashville, Tennessee, -- July 10-12
Nike Nationals
NEW
Nike Invitational Tournament – Chicago, Illinois – July 10-12
OLD
Nike Nationals @ Riverview Park – North Augusta, South Carolina – July 27-29
Fittingly the Nike team based closest to the old home
of Nike Nationals, Team Elite, won the champioship
in 2016, the final year at Riverview Park.The days of the Nike girls programs following behind the boys EYBL Peach Jam at the now iconic Riverview Park Community Center are gone. It was a truly unique event that predated the formation of the actual Nike girls version of the EYBL. Nike Nationals had been played their dating back to its inception in 2006, the year the Amber Harris led Indiana Family came back to be beat Angie Bjorklund and the Spokane Stars.
Besides the dates and location shift, it has also been confirmed that all 32 sponsored teams will compete in Nike Nationals. Previously the 10 league games played in April and July were used to qualify 24 of those teams.
Landscape Shift
The clear move here is to the Midwest in the summer and pushing everything to the first half of July with regards to Nike. The evidence of the shift can be seen in what the event operators who have the EYBL sites are doing surrounding the events. The Battle in the Boro has moved to Louisville, the same location as the league stop, and maintains its same dates, thus running the same time as Nike Nationals. USJN will host the EYBL in Indianapolis and is following it up with a two-day event in Indy the 9-10th as well as events in Chicago and Cincinnati the 10-12th, according to its website.
The piggyback events used to be played in Georgia and South Carolina as Nike Nationals closed out the summer. Table setting events July 23-26 would also be in the region as well as hosting satellite events in and around the Augusta as Nike Nationals was, at the time, an exclusive event by itself. It will now be a tournament within a larger event in Chicago.
Another shoe company sponsored circuit, Adidas Gauntlet, ran its national event two hours west in suburban Atlanta for years.
While Nike has moved early and north, Adidas will maintain the same July schedule with its Summer Championships July 27-29 in the Greater Atlanta Area. There are numerous independent events that will continue to call the Southeast home as well.
The long running events in the second half of July appear to be the same in D.C., Minneapolis, Atlanta and a few others in addition to the Adidas event.
In the first half of July the Flava Jam in Dallas, Texas will remain in place as well the Simply The Best event in Ames, Iowa.
Change is inevitable from the NCAA calendar to team sponsorships to the events themselves but this change by Nike is arguably the biggest shake up in the landscape since the evaluation periods in July were cut from 20 days to 14.
Chris Hansen is managing editor of ProspectsNation.com and serves on the McDonald’s All-American and Naismith Trophy selection committees. He was a co-founder of and the national director of scouting for ESPN HoopGurlz from 2005 until 2012 and is the director of the Check Me Out Showcase. He can be reached at chris@prospectsnation.com.
