Private Capital Comes to College Sports: The Big Ten, Big 12 and Utah

Timeline

1. Spring 2024The Big 12 holds talks with CVC Capital Partners about an equity stake in the conference; they stall by midsummer.
2. Jan 2025Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti begins soliciting private-capital proposals.
3. Jul 1, 2025Revenue sharing with athletes begins under the House settlement.
4. Nov 17, 2025UC Investments says it will not complete its proposed $2.4 billion Big Ten deal without unity among all 18 members, after Michigan and USC oppose it.
5. Dec 9, 2025Utah's trustees unanimously approve a new for-profit athletics company with Otro Capital as a minority investor.
6. Dec 2025The Big 12 finalizes a five-year partnership with RedBird and Weatherford's Collegiate Athletic Solutions.
7. Jun 12, 2026Utah finalizes the deal, renaming the company Crimson Brand Partners; it begins operating July 1.

The ethical issues

• Mission vs. profit: whether investors seeking returns fit nonprofit, often public, universities.
• Governance and consent: who decides, presidents, trustees, conferences or individual schools.
• Transparency: trustees and the public kept in the dark about long-term commitments.
• Long-term binding: grants of rights that tie schools together for two decades.
• Who benefits: whether new money protects women's and Olympic sports or mainly funds football and basketball.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Universities and their trustees	Financial sustainability, institutional control and fiduciary duty.
Conferences	Closing revenue gaps and controlling media and commercial rights.
Investors (UC Investments, RedBird, Weatherford, Otro)	Returns and growth in the college-sports market.
Athletes in all sports	Revenue sharing, scholarships and the survival of non-revenue teams.
Students, faculty and taxpayers	Protection of academic resources and public institutions.
Fans and donors	Competitive programs and the character of college sport.

The case

For most of its history, big-time college sport was financed by media contracts, ticket sales, donors and, often, student fees and university subsidies. In 2025 a new cost arrived: schools began sharing revenue directly with athletes under the House v. NCAA settlement. At the same time, the transfer portal made rosters more expensive to keep. Conferences and schools started talking to a kind of partner they had always avoided: private capital.^[3][4][5]

Background

The University of Utah described the pressure plainly. Its athletics had run “a modest surplus” with help from donors and student fees, but revenue sharing, which began July 1, 2025, and the transfer portal had “introduced significant costs to the university.”^[5] CBS Sports reported that Big 12 schools averaged about $131.7 million in operating expenses in 2025 and operating losses of roughly $57.4 million each, offset in part by boosters and university support, and that the Big 12’s revenue was less than half of the Big Ten’s $928 million.^[3]

The investors had been circling for years. In spring 2024, the Big 12 discussed an $800 million to $1 billion infusion from CVC Capital Partners in exchange for a 15% to 20% stake in the conference; those talks stalled. In January 2025, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti began soliciting proposals of his own.^[3] RedBird Capital’s executives told CBS Sports they had met more than 50 schools and every power conference over two years.^[3]

The rules and governance

There is no single rulebook for these deals. Conferences are associations of member universities, and their media rights are pooled through “grant of rights” agreements that bind schools to the conference for a set period.^[1] Public universities are governed by boards of trustees or regents, yet in the Big Ten’s case trustees were told that presidents could commit their schools without board approval.^[1] Nonprofit status adds another layer. An attorney writing in Sports Business Journal argued that a long-standing tax-court precedent allows nonprofits to partner with for-profit investors provided the nonprofit keeps operational control.^[7]

The Big Ten proposal

The Big Ten’s plan, under discussion from July 2025, would have created a new entity, Big Ten Enterprises, holding the conference’s commercial assets. UC Investments, which manages the University of California system’s pension and endowment funds, would invest $2.4 billion for a 10% stake. Member schools would sign a grant of rights binding them together until 2046.^[1][3]

Opposition grew in the fall. Michigan and USC came out against the deal. Trustees from several Big Ten schools said they had been kept largely in the dark and told that presidents could sign on without board approval; Penn State trustee Jay Paterno said the conference had shown trustees “one slide that had five lines on it.”^[1] Front Office Sports reported that the conference had considered proceeding without the two schools. On November 17, 2025, UC Investments said it would not sign without them: “the unity of the 18 Big Ten University members is key to the success of Big Ten Enterprises,” it said, adding that it needed more time for due diligence.^[1]

Michigan regent Jordan Acker called the pause “the right decision”: “We are fiduciaries, and this is our job—whether the commissioner likes it or not—to understand the long-term impact for our schools.”^[1] UC Investments objected to the deal being called private equity, saying it was a public university system’s investment office.^[1]

A senator’s warning

The opposition also reached Congress. On October 10, 2025, Senator Maria Cantwell, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, sent letters to all 18 Big Ten presidents. She wrote that regents and trustees had told her they “have not been fully briefed on the deal under consideration,” which “draws into question whether the Conference has been transparent.” She warned that investors whose “primary goal” is “to make money for the firm” were unlikely to align with a university’s academic goals or its obligations as a nonprofit.^[8]

Her letter raised three specific risks. The first was tax: university media revenues are untaxed because they are “substantially related to” the institution’s tax-exempt purpose, and a for-profit stake in those revenues could weaken that link. The second was media rights, which she said should generate revenue for schools, “not be used as leverage to ensure that a private investor gets its anticipated return or covers its losses.” The third was fairness: distributions might be tiered rather than equal, so that some schools would earn more than others, “possibly in perpetuity.” She urged each president to demand full disclosure, “including the payout to private investors and Conference administrators,” and ended: “Remember, the Conference reports to you.” She copied the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee.^[8] The Big Ten deal itself had not been completed as of 2026.^[3]

The Big 12’s opt-in model

The Big 12 took a different path. In December 2025 it finalized a five-year partnership with Collegiate Athletic Solutions, a venture of RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital.^[2][3] The deal has three parts: a commercial operation that had already brought in sponsors including PayPal, generating roughly $100 million; a $12.5 million direct investment to build new conference-owned businesses; and an optional credit line of up to $30 million per school, repaid from conference distributions.^[3] Reports differed on the cost of borrowing: SBJ reported a rate believed to be below 10%, while CBS Sports later described double-digit rates.^[2][3] At least 11 of the 16 schools initially declined the credit line.^[3]

Commissioner Brett Yormark drew a line: “We are not in the private equity business. We do not want to give a stake in our conference.”^[2] RedBird is a major investor in the parent company of CBS, a connection SBJ noted could matter when the Big 12 sells its next media rights.^[2][3]

Utah’s operating company

On December 9, 2025, the University of Utah’s 10-member board of trustees unanimously approved creating a for-profit company, owned by the university’s foundation, to run athletic commercial operations, with Otro Capital as a minority equity investor receiving a share of annual revenue. Total investment, including from major donors, was expected to approach $500 million.^[4][5] The university said it was “not selling parts of our Athletics Department, ceding operational control to a third party or relinquishing control of any facilities.”^[5]

The deal closed on June 12, 2026. The company, renamed Crimson Brand Partners, manages ticketing, sponsorships, licensing, events and digital media, while coaching, recruiting, scheduling, athlete support and fundraising stay with the university, which keeps ownership of facilities. Its board is chaired by athletic director Mark Harlan and it reports annually to the foundation and trustees. The university said stabilizing athletics funding is meant to reduce long-term debt, remove pressure to cut less-profitable programs and help secure women’s and Olympic sports.^[6]

Aftermath

By October 2026, the three approaches were being watched as test cases. Axios noted open questions about putting a for-profit structure on a nonprofit, taxpayer-supported institution, and doubts about how much private capital can change college finances when media rights are negotiated by conferences.^[4] RedBird’s president said many athletic directors were waiting for legislative or regulatory changes before borrowing.^[3]

The core dilemma

Universities need money to pay athletes and keep programs alive, and investors are offering it in exchange for a share of future revenue. Taking it could protect academic budgets and non-revenue sports; it could also tie public institutions to investors’ priorities for decades, decided by a few leaders behind closed doors. Can outside capital be invited in on terms that serve a university’s mission, and who has the authority to decide?

Competing values

• Financial sustainability vs. mission integrity: new money may protect programs, but profit motives may reshape priorities.
• Speed vs. deliberation: leaders feel urgency; trustees want time and information.
• Collective strength vs. institutional autonomy: league-wide deals require unity; schools differ.
• Revenue sports vs. broad-based programs: gains may flow mainly to football and basketball.

Strongest arguments

For private capital: revenue sharing created a real funding gap, and outside partners bring expertise in sponsorship, ticketing and media that athletic departments lack. Structures that keep athletic control inside the university, like Utah’s, or that are optional, like the Big 12’s, can add revenue without surrendering the mission.^[3][5][6]

Against, or for caution: investors expect returns that must come from somewhere, potentially fans, students or future athletes. Long grants of rights and equity stakes are hard to undo, and the Big Ten episode showed how such deals can bypass the boards responsible for public institutions.^[1][4][7]

Applying the frameworks

Utilitarian

A utilitarian analysis would weigh the money raised, and the programs and scholarships it might protect, against the costs: investor returns, loss of flexibility, possible pressure to raise prices, and the risk that gains concentrate in revenue sports. It would ask who bears the costs, including students paying fees and taxpayers backing public universities, and whether the alternatives, such as cutting sports or raising fees, are worse.

Justice & fairness (Rawls)

Behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing whether you would be a football player, a rower, a student paying athletic fees or a taxpayer, how would you want new capital structured? A justice lens asks whether the benefits reach the least advantaged participants, such as women’s and Olympic sports athletes, and whether burdens fall fairly. Utah’s stated aim of protecting those sports speaks to this concern; whether it happens will be measurable over time.

Virtue ethics

A virtue lens asks what a university of good character would do. Prudence requires careful diligence; honesty and humility require trustees and the public to be informed; and fidelity to mission asks whether the institution remains recognizably a university. The Big Ten episode raises questions about transparency, while the Big 12 and Utah structures can be read as attempts at a prudent middle course between refusing capital and selling control.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are a trustee at a Big Ten university in November 2025, asked to accept a conference deal that would bind your school until 2046. Stakeholders include athletes in every sport, students, faculty, donors, taxpayers, fans, the conference and the investor, and less visible ones such as future students who will inherit the commitment.
2. Gather facts. What exactly would the school give up and receive? What happens if it declines? What did the board know, and when? Watch for urgency created by competitors and for deference to the president’s or commissioner’s judgment.
3. Test options. (a) Approve the conference deal; (b) decline and pursue a school-level partnership with stronger controls; (c) demand more information and delay. Run each through consequences, duties as a fiduciary of a public institution, and what each says about the university’s character.
4. Check codes and law. What do state law, the university’s bylaws and tax rules require for approving such a commitment? Does a grant of rights to 2046 honor the spirit of the board’s oversight role?
5. Decide and document. Record the rationale, trade-offs and who was consulted, including faculty, athletes and finance experts.
6. Communicate and follow up. How will the decision be explained to the public? What reporting would show whether outside capital protects non-revenue sports and academic budgets?

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: the terms and stall of the Big Ten proposal; the structure of the Big 12–RedBird partnership; Utah’s approval and closing of the Crimson Brand Partners deal.
• Contested: whether outside capital will strengthen or distort college athletics; whether these deals are “private equity”; whether presidents can bind universities without board approval; who will benefit from the money.

Why this case matters

College sport’s money problems used to be solved by donors and subsidies. As athletes are paid, schools are reaching for tools from professional sport, and the governance of public, nonprofit institutions is being tested. These first deals will shape whether universities keep control of their athletic programs or share it with investors.

Key terms

Commercialization

The process of turning sport into a product and a business enterprise, with profit pressures that can compete with principle.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Principal–agent problem

When those acting on others’ behalf (agents such as executives, officials or agents) have interests that diverge from the people they serve.

Stakeholders

Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.

Moral hazard

When someone takes more risk because others will bear the cost.

Conflict of interest

A situation where a person’s private interest could improperly influence a decision they make in an official role.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. Is selling a share of a conference or athletic department's commercial operations compatible with a public university's mission?
2. Who should decide whether a school joins such a deal: the president, the board of trustees, the state, or the conference?
3. Does the Big 12's opt-in credit model or Utah's operating partnership better protect the university? Why?
4. What safeguards should be required before a school takes outside capital?
5. If new money mainly supports football and basketball, is that a fair use of it?

Sources

1. UC Investments Says Big Ten Deal Is Off Until Schools Can Agree — Front Office Sports
2. A few thoughts on the Big 12 private capital deal — Sports Business Journal
3. Inside Big 12's bet on private equity to close revenue gap, compete in NIL — CBS Sports
4. Private equity makes its first college sports play — Axios
5. The Imperative to Lead: The Future of Athletics at the University of Utah — University of Utah Athletics
6. University of Utah and its foundation finalize deal to form Crimson Brand Partners — University of Utah (PR Newswire)
7. What two conferences teach us about governance and private capital (opinion) — Sports Business Journal
8. Sen. Cantwell Warns Big Ten Presidents of Dangers in Selling University Assets to Private Equity Firms (Oct. 10, 2025) — U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation