Big 12 reaches private equity deal that could add $12.5 million to the conference

College Football Enquirer co-hosts Ross Dellenger, Andy Staples and Steven Godfrey discuss the potential private equity deal that the Big 12 approved and what it means for the member schools. Check out the full conversation on the “College Football Enquirer” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

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Video Transcript

A league has now made a deal with a private equity company, though it’s not exactly a PE deal yet.

So let’s explain.

It’s kinda like a three-part deal, right?

The first part is, the league office gets, at least 12 and a half million dollars.

They can get as much as, like, 25 million, I think, to invest in companies and try to, make more money, ge- revenue generating opportunities, whatever.

So there’s that.

and they’re getting that money from the capital companies, from, Redbird and Weatherford.

and then the second bucket is sorta just a strategic long-term relationship and partnership with Redbird, to sorta monetize some of their, you know, their partners and their assets and all that stuff, kinda the boring part.

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And then the third bucket is probably the most interesting part, and the one with maybe more questions around it, which is each of the 16 Big 12 schools get an option, an option, not required, an option to take upwards of a one-time payment of upwards of 30 million, or, $30 million in capital.

so that’s kind of how it breaks down.

the question that I’m getting most certainly, and it’s fair, and it, and I addressed it briefly in the story, is how many schools will actually take this?

and there seems to be the range of two to five.

It being structured this way is intentionally, obviously, to, to, make sure that it, it has the support.

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‘Cause I think if you required everybody to take the money, you know, there’s a good portion of the league that wouldn’t take the money, don’t wa- doesn’t want the money in there.

so- Texas Tech’s like, “We have our own billionaire, thank you.”

Yeah.

“We, we don’t need you.”

Yeah, you can, you can imagine the ones that aren’t gonna take the money, right?

Texas Tech.

Utah is doing their own private- Yes equity deal.

Their deal is actual equity.

This is more of a capital deal.

Yeah.

But that deal is, like, an actual private equity deal.

Well- you can imagine, like, Arizona State, I’m sure doesn’t really need it, right?

There, there’s certain Ba- Baylor probably do- is, wouldn’t take it, is, is not gonna need it.

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