Big 12 Considering $1B in Private Equity

cysmiley

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I would be concerned about each school's donor base, and tax status, plus the perceived stake by them in the teams success, especially if they see their money ending up in the profit line of the private investment firm, even if AD's say ticket/concession/TV money is going to them, we keep all your's here in the AD. Money is fungible.
 

1UNI2ISU

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Don't a lot of these potential benefits hinge on the Big 12 being the only conference to get into bed with PE? As soon as the B1G or SEC follows suit - and they can afford to sit back for a year or two and learn from our inevitable mistakes as a first mover - the financial advantage they have over us returns.

How can the Big 12's media rights be so vastly undervalued when they were just renegotiated?
They're not. That's the thing.

Yormark is out, as he should be, running with that narrative but the market literally just told you what you were worth.

Maybe you get a slight bump by separating basketball but we all know where college basketball really falls in the sports pecking order. I think he envisions that bump by doing what the Big East just did and selling a bunch of smaller packages to more networks like the Big Ten did with football.
 
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Trice

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They're not. That's the thing.

Yormark is out, as he should be, running with that narrative but the market literally just told you what you were worth.

Maybe you get a slight bump by separating basketball but we all know where college basketball really falls in the sports pecking order. I think he envisions that bump by doing what the Big East just did and selling a bunch of smaller packages to more networks like the Big Ten did with football.

Perhaps the poster I was responding to was conflating two things then. The story references that college football as a whole (not specifically the Big 12) was undervalued. And it also references that Big 12 media rights could double in the next deal. I suppose those things may not be inconsistent with one another.
 
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Gunnerclone

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Not sure what to think either. Having a company that manages $200B owning 20% could help stabilize the league or they could be the downfall depending on their actual intentions.

Big 12 needs to make sure the language is airtight in event of an exit.

Also this should signal everyone to stop giving your hard earned money to “Collections” I mean “Collectives”.
 

cycloneworld

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While I completely agree with this, I believe this situation may be unique. BY has proven to be an out-of-the-box thinker/doer. I suspect more stadium/field branding type stuff, offsetting any advertising costs paid directly to the media. I also suspect a 'rights' to things like 'Olympic Sports' and what not, which can then be marketed to outside media. I'm sure we can put our heads together and come up with all kinds of stuff these folks can make money on.

As someone who works with private equity, this would be like the Big 12 taking out a cash advance on its credit card or putting up its car for a high interest payday loan.

PE makes investments like this to make a **** ton of money. Money that the Big 12 would give up for a short term cash infusion. What happens when that money is gone? Back to the well…
 

WooBadger18

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I don’t see this being a good thing, no way do I want private equity involved in sports.

It's time to disengage college sports from the school.

It's a business. Sell access to the IP and set up oversight to ensure the sports entity doesn't embarrass the school.

Then have the schools step aside. This is professional sports. Treat it that way.
On the one hand, I really don’t want that to happen because that would kill my interest in college sports. If I’m going to watch a pro team, why on earth would I watch Iowa State or Wisconsin? Especially when that point I would also have no connection to either team.

On the other hand, this “death by 1000 cuts” is exhausting and doing that would rip the bandaid off.

A very similar proposal (also including CVC) happened in German soccer this year. Fans were adamantly against it, to the point of purposely stopping/delaying games by throwing chocolate coins and tennis balls onto the field (among many other protests). Fan pressure eventually got the clubs/leagues to cave and not go through with it.

That was great to see and it was entertaining to see what new protests they would come up with each week. My favorites were the model plane they smuggled in that was flying around the stadium and the remote controlled car with smoke bombs on the back.

I think a problem is that in the United States our fan bases are just not coordinated enough to do that.
 

spk123

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That was great to see and it was entertaining to see what new protests they would come up with each week. My favorites were the model plane they smuggled in that was flying around the stadium and the remote controlled car with smoke bombs on the back.

I think a problem is that in the United States our fan bases are just not coordinated enough to do that.

Not only not coordinated enough, but also too obsessed (IMO) with "winning" in the short term at the expense of their rivals, even if long term it's worse for the team/league/sport as a whole.

Not a phenomenon unique to US sports either, other European soccer leagues are susceptible to this as well with private equity/sovereign wealth funds/shady oligarchs being allowed to own networks of clubs. Many fans are willing to look past it in order for a better chance at trophies, but for every Man City, there are plenty of Málagas too. I know you know this too, but Germany is a bit of an outlier both in terms of fan culture as well as the 50+1 ownership structure.
 

jctisu

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I don’t see this being a good thing, no way do I want private equity involved in sports.


On the one hand, I really don’t want that to happen because that would kill my interest in college sports. If I’m going to watch a pro team, why on earth would I watch Iowa State or Wisconsin? Especially when that point I would also have no connection to either team.

On the other hand, this “death by 1000 cuts” is exhausting and doing that would rip the bandaid off.


That was great to see and it was entertaining to see what new protests they would come up with each week. My favorites were the model plane they smuggled in that was flying around the stadium and the remote controlled car with smoke bombs on the back.

I think a problem is that in the United States our fan bases are just not coordinated enough to do that.
More like not together enough. Fans here are selfish and don't care about anything unless it's their team being impacted. I mean we have fans openly taking joy in programs being relegated. Hoping for it actually. The reasons the European's can pull this off is A) They really give a **** about their sport as a whole and B) the big dogs (blue bloods) understand how important it is to have all of these smaller programs to keep the fabric of the sport intact.
 
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