B12 considering private equity investment of up to $1B

[MDUte]

Breaking: Big 12 considering private equity investment of up to $1 billion for as much as 20% of conference – https://t.co/Do0GY2YbwU https://t.co/bWvzLzspZJ

— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) June 13, 2024

[Central Coast Ute]

This sounds familiar.

[2008 National Champ]

yep. there should be a blanket ban on any Larry Scott ideas

[Whitty]

Can’t wait for the Zoobs’ 180 of opinion on this idea. Was a horrible idea when the Pac-12 considered it, will now be a sign of Yormark’s genius…

Personally I’m not a fan. The absolute last thing college sports needs is private equity.

[AlohaUte]

I’m 100% against this. Private equity are a bunch of snakes who squeeze every last dime out of anything they touch. Sure, they can make companies more profitable, but most of that profit goes right into their pockets.

[highlandute7]

Not only that, but also looking at a naming rights deal for the conference that would remove the ‘Big’ from the conference name.

Naming rights

[MDUte]

Naming rights seems like a no-brainer way of increasing revenues for the member schools. I couldn’t care less if it’s called the “Allstate Conference” or the “Allstate Big 12” if it means more money to Utah that helps us be more competitive.

I’m not planning on Utah being in the B12 for long so if it helps increase revenues without strings attached (ie PE money), all the better IMO.

https://xltwitter.com/on3sports/status/1801304411102212260?s=46&t=gpMM0wi50BDB5YlKcPOrew

[2008 National Champ]

the problem is that naming rights packages don’t really move the needle in terms of revenue. they amount to pennies on the dollar when you compare the exposure against what the company actually pays out.

[MDUte]

Very true, naming rights certainly isn’t going to close any of the gap that exists between the B12 and the P2. But if it could mean an extra $3M to each member school, that’s still $3M that the program could certainly use.

[2008 National Champ]

I can’t think of anyone that would pay ~ 50 MM per annum (16 teams @ 3 MM per) to put their name on the conference. More likely they’d do a 10 year deal for that amount which now gets you down to 0.3 MM per team.

[MDUte]

Yea I have no idea what the $ amount the naming rights would generate. But I thought I saw people throwing out the $50M figure on Twitter and $3M per school. Seems way high to me too.

[2008 National Champ]

This is from a few years ago and is actually better than I was remembering. I thought the stadium naming rights were closer to 1 MM per at the top end.

[MDUte]

Here’s one of the online tweets I saw that claimed the naming rights was worth anywhere between $30-$50M annually to the conference or between $1.88M-$3.1M per school annually. I agree it seems awfully high but if the low-end number is true, that’s still a good amount of money that Utah could use.

That could add a bunch of additional recruiting staff personnel. Last report I saw showed that outside of the maximum amount of coaching staff CFB programs are allowed, the numbers of support staff varies considerably. Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Georgia, and Michigan all reported as having 40+ support staff outside of the coaching staff. By comparison, Utah was operating with 25. Being able to add 10 recruiting staff personnel focused on finding and evaluating talent and establishing relationships to then hand-off to the coaching staff would be huge.

But, that’s assuming the naming rights would add this reported amount of revenue to the schools. We all remember the pie-in-the-sky numbers Larry Scott told the schools they’d get from the PAC-12 Network’s Tier 3 rights that never panned out. So who knows…

Big 12 in discussions w/Allstate on a naming rights deal to change league's name, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. Deal could be worth b/w $30-$50 million annually & name possibilities include Big Allstate Conference or Allstate 12 Conference, sources said https://t.co/Cv22vjhBSx

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) June 13, 2024

[Kirk Herbstreet]

Yikes. None of this is a good look. If they get serious about this, Utah needs to leave even if a FSU/Clemson-less ACC is the only option.

[Rick]

I hate all of this. Greed is not necessarily progress.

[mesovanhorny]

Someone else said it above, PE will siphon off any positive financial progress any NCAA conference could make. Slit the wrist and drain the blood. Yikes.

There needs to be some guardrails around what amateur athletes can earn through NIL, maybe directly tied to tiers and the athlete’s potential to generate an expected amount of revenue. What’s going on out there now is simply unsustainable for any conference or university in the long-term.

[Knoblocker]

I’ll just leave this here. A quote about the situation I saw somewhere.

“The Big Ten and SEC expand and destroy other conferences, manipulate the CFP and revenue payouts in their favor and everyone praises them, hoots and hollers for the Power Two and jokes at how the other conferences aren’t at a similar revenue.

The Big 12 contemplates a new strategy to try and fight back and earn themselves revenue to stay competitive and they get hated on for it. Make it make sense?”

Y’all’re in the Big 12 now. It’s time to fight back against the real power hungry enemies of college football.

[MDUte]

I think I heard there are 3 B12 schools who have pushed back on the PE idea. And I’d be willing to bet that 2 of those schools are Utah and Kansas. Why? Because if the B12 does a PE deal and all the schools sign onto it, it will make it basically impossible for any B12 school(s) to leave the conference early if an opportunity came up to join the P2.

Utah already negotiated its way out of the 99 year clause to eliminate the exit fee and have itself well positioned for future realignment. I’d be shocked if Utah’s leadership isn’t against signing a PE deal.

[Knoblocker]

Absolutely. Conference realignment isn’t over. The Big 12 media rights deal is up in 2031. Every athletic department is positioning themselves for the next round. It ain’t just Utah and Kansas.

Yormark is just trying to get us all paid. My point was aimed at people who belittle the Big 12 for doing this when SEC/Disney/CFP/Fox/B1G have been grabbing money, power, and molding college football in their image for years now.

[MDUte]

Absolutely. I was going to say Utah, Kansas, and Oklahoma St as the likely 3 schools pushing back on PE. Totally agree with you, though, that there has to be a number of others who are wanting to position themselves for the chaos of future realignment.

[Central Coast Ute]

I get what you’re saying, but we’ve lived this reality before. The exact same scenario…

[2008 National Champ]

Not to mention the deals he references were partnerships whereby the schools and the networks are incentivized to maximize the short-term revenue while increasing the value of all parties. And at no point did the schools give up anything other than their ability to broadcast their games on their own.

Once people start throwing around words like “equity”, the conversation changes. Giving a third party the ability to make decisions, as well as part ownership of the schools assets, scares the bejeebus out of me.

Bad analogy but if I own my home and decide to AirBNB it, I wouldn’t sign over a % of the value of my home (the equity) for the privilege. Any deal I make would have to guarantee me full control of my asset in no worse than it’s current condition upon conclusion.

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