This bit in the espn article about the naming rights made me do a doubletake:
The Big 12 has also been in discussions with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for a stake in the league between 15% to 20%, sources confirmed to ESPN. That could give the Big 12 up to a $1 billion cash infusion and would be the first known large-scale private equity investment in college sports.
Interesting, and perplexing to me at least. My understanding is a league’s value is basically how many people want to watch those teams play, and that is set by demographics associated with the schools. I’m not sure how a billion dollar infusion will change those core factors.
Actually attended a seminar on this. Private equity basically views professional sports as a known rate of return at this point. The move is now into college sports where they can “beat the market”. My understanding of this is that the schools/conference are getting the security of cash on hand, and in return, the PE firms get the upside/downside risks, betting that there’s untapped upside.
Just the latest in what I suspect will be big time sports going in a direction that I will not follow.
I’ve been doing my best to just enjoy the games on the field - because I love watching sports - and ignoring everything else. I’m assuming this will continue with increased difficulty [insert Astros joke here]
While I approve of treating the players was employees, as they essentially have been for quite some time, the overall moves of realignment, branding, etc are of course crass and off-putting.
And that will matter not one single bit to me as I get to watch Texas face Georgia in a crucial regular season game.