The Big Ten Conference is taking preliminary bids from private equity firms despite past comments from commissioner Tony Petitti questioning the upside of involving institutional capital in college sports.
According to multiple people familiar with the situation, the conference previously retained investment bank Evercore, which solicited a first round of indicative offers from PE firms this week, just before a key deadline in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit that could fundamentally change the economics of intercollegiate athletics.
“To better support its 18 member institutions, the conference is evaluating potential strategic partnerships in order to enhance the conference’s event, sponsorship and other ancillary business endeavors,” a Big Ten spokesperson told Sportico in an email, while declining to provide additional details. A representative from Evercore did not respond to a request for comment.
As the revenue leader among college conferences, the Big Ten posted $880 million in earnings for fiscal year 2023, according to its tax filings. In July 2023, the conference commenced a $7 billion, seven-year multimedia rights deal with Fox, CBS and NBC. In August 2024, the league officially welcomed four former Pac-12 stalwarts–UCLA, USC, Washington and Oregon—thus expanding its roster to 18 schools.
Discussions about private equity in college sports initially started at the school level, with Florida State leading the charge. In 2022, the university began talks with PE giant Sixth Street, and later Arctos Partners, under an initiative dubbed Project Osceola. However, as reported by Sportico, those talks effectively stalled by late 2023.
In June, CBS Sports reported that the Big 12 was considering an $800 million to $1 billion investment from CVC Capital Partners, in exchange for a 15% to 20% stake in the conference. Since then, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been public in stating his interest in bringing on PE partners, as has new American Athletic American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti.
But the recent moves by the Big Ten, which generated 72% more revenue than the Big 12 in FY23, represent a major development given the conference’s size and reach. These actions also indicate a shift, at least in terms of public rhetoric, from its boss.
In October, leaders from the SEC and Big Ten convened for a joint summit in Nashville to explore potential collaborations between the country’s two most influential athletic conferences. At the same time, Yahoo Sports reported on the development of a bold, new concept for a super league called “Project Rudy.” That proposal, spearheaded by former Disney executives now at Smash Capital, sought to consolidate schools from the Power Four conferences into a 70-team structure, which would be infused with up to $9 billion in private capital.
However, Petitti quickly dismissed the idea.
“I haven’t seen anything in any of these plans that we couldn’t do ourselves, alongside our (Power 4) colleagues,” Petitti told reporters in Nashville. “Ultimately, there’s a strong commitment that we can achieve all of this on our own.”
Earlier in the year, a group of high-profile sports team owners, executives and college administrators began advocating for an intercollegiate Super League under the umbrella of College Sports Tomorrow. The group included notable figures such as David Blitzer, owner of the Devils and Sixers; NFL executive Brian Rolapp; Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam; Syracuse chancellor Kent Syverud; and TurnkeyZRG CEO Len Perna. In February 2024, a confidential pitch deck circulated by the group and obtained by Sportico outlined key aspects of its proposal, including a plan to share broadcast revenue with players, a 40-game spring football “festival,” and a rough outline of how the 70 permanent members would be distributed across seven geographically aligned leagues.
Core to the College Sports Tomorrow’s proposal is an NFL-like pooling of conference multimedia rights into a separate, centralized entity that could conceivably help increase its value in the market and provide more money to schools. That desire for new revenue has taken on new urgency in anticipation of a federal court granting final approval of the House settlement, which would allow schools to share up to $20.5 million of revenue with athletes per year. The court’s deadline for the filing of objections in the settlement is Friday.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten and SEC are slated to hold a second summit next month in New Orleans.
