Private Equity Experience

NIL on Steroids: PE is Taking Over College Athletics!

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 25

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In this trending topic episode of the Private Equity Experience Podcast, hosts dive into the explosive intersection of private equity (PE) in college sports. Fueled by NIL deals, revenue sharing, transfer portal chaos, and massive TV rights contracts, college athletics—especially college football and basketball—is on the brink of a PE revolution. Is the Big Ten "selling its soul"? Could Notre Dame sell 10 years of TV rights for $2.8B? The team unpacks how PE could transform conferences like the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC, boost efficiencies, and reshape the "student-athlete" model. Predictions: PE investments within the next year. Perfect for fans tracking college sports changes, PE trends, and the shift from amateur to pro-like leagues.

Memorable Quotes:
"When one needs cash, there's places to find that cash... private equity is now being talked about as a means to grow college sports." – Rory Liebhart

"A hundred dollars next year is worth about $96 today... Money today is worth more than money tomorrow." – Ed Barton on time value of money

"It'll happen sooner than 24 months... bigger than the NFL." – Ed & Rory on PE timeline

Private equity's push into college athletics signals a $ multi-billion-dollar new frontier. Track NIL evolution, conference realignments, and revenue-sharing lawsuits. Will it save or "fleece" programs like the Big Ten?
Key Topics: private equity college sports, PE in college football, NIL private equity, college basketball investments, SEC Big Ten TV rights, transfer portal impact, college athletics revenue sharing


Subscribe & Share: Never miss PE trends. Rate 5⭐ & drop a review! Follow for updates on Ep. 26. #PrivateEquity #CollegeFootball #NILDeals #BigTen #SEC

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Three insiders. One mic. All things private equity — explained. Hi 👋 We’re Ed, Rory, and Emily — a CEO, a CFO, and a Chief of Staff — here to demystify the world of private equity. Between us, we’ve sat in the founder’s chair, run PE‑backed companies, and worked on the deal side, so we know the wins, the pitfalls, and the jargon (and we’ll explain it).

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emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

All right. We have another trending topic episode, so we've come across a whole bunch of articles, but here's one Big 10 is letting the wolf in the door and selling its soul for what? The bizarre, brazen story of the Big 10 trying to financially fleece itself. So.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

If that's not clickbait, I don't know what is I,

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

We're talking about PE in college athletics, which is something I never thought I'd hear, but apparently this is like an actual thing being considered.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah, it has been, it's really been, um, it's kind of coming to the forefront over the last couple years as athletics specifically. Uh, football and basketball have really turned a paradigm to where players are now being paid through, name, image, and likeness, collectives. There's revenue sharing, uh, from universities to players now, and there's basically a ton of cash moving around in ways that it hasn't before. when you, when when one needs cash, there's places to, you know, find that cash and, and so yes, private equity is now being talked about as a, as a means to grow college sports in ways that we've never seen before, which is really interesting.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

And, and this is different from like the transfer portal and NIL and like paying college athletes.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

It's all

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Okay.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Okay.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

definitely. I would say, if not for those things. real, uh, in, in, in ways that are actually legal now. When people were still doing the same shit, when they were, when it was illegal. Let's be clear about that. Now it's overt, and now it's, uh, you know, it's a time for, other private, private private investors to get involved really. And private equities at the top of the list.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

So, so how does this work? Like who is who, what entity are they investing in?

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Well, that's, I think, what is much, much of a discussion topic. I don't think anything is being fully established. Right? Like I have so many questions. I have more questions than answers. Let's put it that way. you know, lot of universities are public institutions, some are private. Um, how, how would you distinguish, you know, somebody wanting to invest in the football program of a school but not the. know, women's field hockey, right? Like, things like that come to mind. How do we treat players as employees? I mean, you can look to, to professional sports franchises and kind of see a model happening there, but it's just so crazy for me. I, I mean, I'm a college football guy. I like grow up with the romanticism about student athletes and you know, it being a pivotal thing and it's like I've seen it change so much over the last three or four years. I'm like clinging to this notion of what is no longer there. You know? And I mean, I've personally turned off from, uh, pro sports in a lot of ways because I've just, put all my energy into college football and things like that. But, so it's like seeing this happen is really wild, but it also opens up, know, discussion of like, well, what could change? How could it be, you know.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Yeah, well, I think. I think it was Ed saying in an earlier conversation on or off air, I can't remember, but that some college students took a pay cut when they went to the pros.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah. They took a pay cut when they got drafted

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Wow.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

and this is a situation where, you know, you're like, how does, how's pe gonna do this? You know my, my response is generally where there's any cash flow, especially at time valued cash flow, you've got the ability to discount that cash flow and it's monthly recurring revenue, or it's annual recurring revenue, which is set by TV contracts and NIL contracts, and you can apply a risk premium to it. You're gonna be able to then discount it back to where the PE guys are gonna be happy. And the college is happy. So what, here's an example of something I think you may see. You may see a university, and I'll use one of my myriad of, of

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

you

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

universities. so you may see a university like the University of Notre Dame decide to go, decide to go, okay,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

brand probably in

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

what we're gonna do. We're going to the rights of our next 10 years worth of college football, television

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Mm-hmm.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

to a private equity firm. For an upfront payment of$2.8 billion.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

And then Notre Dame.'cause Notre Dame does, I mean, I, when I was there, we got, we got the exclusive

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Oh

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

with NBC.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Saturday morning,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

We got the exclusive with NBC. And so we were, we were the Notre Dame Broadcasting network, or Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation with NBC. And so they do that and then the PE guys go, okay, here's what we can do. We're gonna negotiate a better deal or a harder, hard, harder core deal for the television rights. So we're gonna get 3.8 billion for the television rights. The other thing that I saw in, in some of the articles are college. College athletic directors tend to be, attorneys tend to be, or have come up through the college athletics environment. And so, you know, they're talking about like, the negotiation of some of these contracts has been, you know, how do people make millions of dollars and continue to fail year after year, after year after year. And, so the private equity folks are likely to come in and bring things like. You know, complex analytic models to, to coaching to go, okay, this coach is, you know, what correlations at a coordinator level or at a small college level work well to bring in somebody at a higher level. So, and then if the guy's not performing, boot them out and get someone in and they're gonna negotiate harder contracts with the talent. So it's, it's, it turns into a pro league essentially that's,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

time.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

under the brand of a college.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

So, so you're selling the TV rights, but the, the product is still the game and how good the game is and how winning the team is, or.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

say winning helps certainly and, and sort of having a successful program. Helps. Um, however, you have all sorts of value centers in a college college program similar to like A NFL program or, you know, major League soccer. Not major league soccer as much, but just like Premier League stuff, like think Global, but like, you know, the branding around the individual players, which now is even more prevalent now that you can actually pay players for that. You have merchandising rights, you have concessions rights, you have freaking real estate on which your stadium's built. You have all of these elements that

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah, luxury boxes.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

to, to the, to the experience. And so at the end of the day, it's about, it's a consumer product. Just like, you know, other sports are. And so however you monetize and follow those models from a private equity standpoint will apply here. I think it's, uh, kind of to what Ed alluded to. I see. Like why would, why would a private equity wanna get involved? A, it's kind of a new frontier for them to get involved. There's not, there hasn't prev previously been a ton of above board capital flowing into the, into the, into the programs. Two, you know, it's probably ripe for efficiency gains from a managerial and oversight perspective. Again, not, not always the case, but in a lot of, a lot of instances, private institutions are run like an enterprise. They're run like,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

No.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

know, a, a taxpayer funded institution, so you don't have as much innovation, things like that. I'm sort of. sort of painting a picture of, of generality. It's not always the case, but like all of these things are saying, Hey, we can come in here and do this better than it's been done. We can ring some efficiencies out, make it more profitable, and then become more successful and then sell the enterprise down the road, you know, to

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Wow.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

other institutions. It's really an interesting time to be seeing this unfold. Literally, you know.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Part of me.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

the bigger, the bigger difference here is going to be there is no equity essentially in the core product. So you've got things that you can put.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

You

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Equity, like structures around it, you know, so it could be stadium, stadium rentals, you know, those kind of things. But you do have in college athletics, and again, let me be clear, it's. Men's basketball, men's football, everything else is a, a loss at col. At college, generally

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

what you do have is fairly predictable, especially when you're talking like the top 40 schools. Fairly predictable cash flows in both of those sports in. And cash flows that can be, that can be monetized for present value and then the university can use that money for other program. So that's their position is, look, I, if I can get a billion and a half or$2 billion now versus 2.8 billion over the next five years, I'll take the 2 billion now so I can build new dormitories or so I can hire a new X or so I could do new y.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Then the, the PE guys are able to take on something, a, a different approach with the, with respect to the cash flow. So I think that's, I think what's more, what we're more likely to see is like a television setup where they go, look, we're going to buy the exclusive negotiating rights and cash flows from your television for the next 10 years. When that contract is coming up, it's gonna be an extension, or another private equity firm is gonna come in and try and negotiate a deal to get that same option or same negotiating. Right.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

And then how wild is it to think about m and a in the space too, right? Like as far as combining things like conferences, which we've already seen happening, um, but in a, in a way that's much more structured and, and sort of like PE model. Um, like how, you know, how could you think about like up a bunch of sub conferences into another power conference,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Well, your, your, your one model that I would think is logical because it's already on the college football side, has already been kind of permeated by corporate sponsorship, is the playoffs bowl game

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Absolutely

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

So you look at the, you look at March Madness for instance,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

has not been largely.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Mm-hmm.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

start getting corporate sponsors for each of those games, and then you start getting, you know, some of those, some of those elements are played in at neutral sites, but those neutral sites could very well be. You know, corporate owned facilities that have x, y, or Z type of ticket sales and other things. I think there's, there's a, a myriad

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Oh

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

of, of potential opportunities here where private equity can insert themselves, whether that's in the playoff area, where, again, I think you, that at that point do have a potential equity, new kind of new venture play. Um,'cause because right now the NCAA kinda runs the, the NCAA runs attorney and.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

they might just want the cash and then the other on the other side, the college football, um, bowl games are, are really owned by the corporate sponsors at this point.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah. Yeah. Bowl and the, you know, like, you know, like all of these bowl games, like they are their own brands. They truly are. And they bring brand recognition.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah, the, the BlackRock Opportunity Fund Bowl.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

evergreen fun too, like, yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Oh my gosh. So Ed, you threw out some like financial terms and you kind of explained'em along the way, but present value, meaning I'd rather have the money now so I can invest it earlier.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

now is worth more than money over time or money later.'cause in your pocket. And so there's a value that

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

You can put it to use right now and you have it like in hand versus on a spreadsheet,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

credit risk and you remove. Uh, kind of any of the other non-pro non systematic risks that can't be diversified or hedged away.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Right.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

then there was like the one you mentioned earlier, which is the delayed or like time value

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Time

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

something.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Value of money is essentially the same thing, which is

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Okay.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

the present value of the money is the time value. Time. Money has a time value. Time has a money value that was taught to me by the late professor Paul Conway back in 1990, and the the thought process there is. Money today is worth more than money tomorrow, and so you should be compensated or you should pay to get the money faster. And that's the time value of money, that's the present value of the money. So a hundred dollars next year is worth about 90,$96 today. On the

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

So,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

all your time has a money value, so you're, you shouldn't give your time away without at what am I being compensated for, taking this risk.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

so you're saying in, in this what we're talking about this topic, the schools would rather have the money now

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

that they can, like you said, go invest in a dorm or go invest in like top professors or whatever. Um, and then the. It's interesting the players in this whole, in this whole PE jigsaw puzzle are like now like TV rights and corporate sponsors and like.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

I

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

always have been. I would argue. And I think that's the main argument for some of the sea changes we've seen in the ncaa, but. But it does raise questions like, how, how can, how much can you hold the, these players accountable to the successor, not of the business plan of the squad? You know? Right. Like, so, you know, any, any employees that you know are, are managed in private company can be fired and hired at will effectively. So, you know, think again about like, we have 18 to 20 year olds, mostly in the college football arena. Same with basketball. You know,'cause

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Give them more attention and more pressure and more money and see how that goes.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

You know,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

It's a good idea.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

are there? Like, you know, like they don't even, it's such a formative years for someone. I mean, so, but it is capitalism so you can choose to be part of it or not. Right. So, But it would be very interesting to see how, just how much we dealt, you know, kind of move towards players becoming true employees collective bargaining, that all of the, the stuff that, know, pro franchises deal with now. But those, those kids are a little bit older at that point. Um.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

is this like at the conference level or the school by school level or T-B-D-S-E-C.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

much more knowledgeable of college football than basketball, but right now you have four power conferences with really two super conferences. The Big 10 in the, in the SEC. We should be saying all these words a lot because it'll get picked up in the algorithm and like get out to lost people. SEC, big 10, big 12. And the A, c, C. So those are effectively the four conferences that have. The power schools. The one caveat to that is you caught a couple of independents with Notre Dame being the most notable one, which is, or again, as I

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

They're not in a conference.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

not in the conference by their own choice. Um, and that's worked out extremely well for them, for that school and that program. But point being is of the legislation in college athletics is built around that, around those conferences. So it starts there, but within that you have schools competing for. within the conferences. And you have these conferences that sh the conferences are what make a ton of money right now from the, broadcasting rights, the media rights, all that stuff, uh, predominantly at which point they share that revenue with the universities and within those cast systems, if you will. You know, the, the, the bigger schools get a higher share than the lower schools or the newer schools to the conference. But, so there's a lot to be done and unlocked there, so to speak. But, but yeah, I think that that's how it'll be. I think it's kind of set up right now in the way that it would kind of be taken forward. So there'd be investments as we've seen in these articles recently, is today into the Big 10 or some of these other conferences. And from there, you know, how the schools negotiate with the conferences is another thing.'cause maybe the conferences start kicking schools out and stuff like that. And where I, where I think a lot of money is be made as the lawyers in all of this, because you're setting new policy and you're gonna be litigating the shit outta stuff when stuff really starts happening. So, um. You know, really, really interesting. But it's like, again, I was, we were talking off air. If you would've told me this would've happened five years ago, I would've like thought no way. Like, this is the one last bastion of like, you know, kind of like, um, the

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Rockwell.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Right. You know? And I'm like, Nope, And it's not as if the, I think it was actually more the schools and, the conferences that have made these big changes available for private equity to come in. It hasn't, it wasn't like private equity is like. Spearheading this per se. I think there, you know, it's just a natural place for investment, institutional investment to go and they're at the top of the food pyramid on that. You know,

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Who, who does this displace or like ruffle feathers of like, I'm imagining, I know in the SEC there's like some big donors.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

think fans that clinging to some level of a, we just said, like the sort of classic notion. I, one one, you know, little bit of a tangent, if I may. Like, one thing that I've been thinking about on this front is like. There are a lot of college fans. I'm kind of one of those, it's like, I like it because of what it represents nostalgia wise to me and all this stuff that, if it becomes the NFL, are it, does this cannibalize the NFL or, or the other way around? It's like maybe people are just gonna like gravitate more towards the NFL because. Maybe they just don't have the bandwidth for all of it. Taking up an entire Saturday and an entire Sunday. I pretty much have my Saturdays taken up, but I have my Sundays free. but it is interesting to say, okay, there's only so many eyeballs that are into football. You know, are, is it going to grow the game or is it gonna, you know, kind of drop some eyeballs or move eyeballs from one to the other?'cause how much of a, you know, how much. Capacity. Do you have to follow all of your favorite NFL teams and all of your favorite college teams and stuff like that? I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there that do all of it, but like,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Um.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

I'm just saying, I, I just wonder if it doesn't alienate the customer at the end of the day and the customer's, the consumer of the product, right? So.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

I was gonna say, I think that's, well, that's well said, Rory. I, I, you know, speaking for myself, the, to be you had very few transfers and you had to wait a year to transfer in college to play, and so you had a lot more stability. You always had 25% of the team or so turning over every year, but you had a lot more stability in the players.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Mm-hmm.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

the coaches tended to have, there tended to be a lot longer fuse on coach. You know, kind of you hire a coach and they last for a while and you know what, what we've seen already is with the transfer portal and the NIL money and those things, people go and look, I'm gonna transfer'cause I can get more money here and I can get more playing time there. And you know, again, that's, that for me has actually taken. the college football piece and made it feel like the NFL. And I'm like, look, and I'm with you. I'm like, look, if I got a, I'm gonna, I actually see more stability with the Seahawks than I see with Syracuse University. And so I'm like, I, I, you know, if I gotta pick one or the other, I'm gonna pick the, the local NFL team.'cause at least they're not pretending to be, a, a not-for-profit, you know, enterprise that's educationally driven.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Would there ever be like a, these, these college teams are doing the money play and the PE and, and, and these college teams are just not, it's like a normal,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

is a lot of that.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

that way?

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

okay.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

question.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

and that's, and so like we talked earlier, Notre Dame in, in 1988, it, basically negotiated its own TV agreement with NBC exclusive and has had that for. I mean, we're looking like nearly 40 years.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

so they, and, and you know, they said, look, we, we can draw all these eyeballs. We're gonna negotiate our own deal. We're not going through the NCAA

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Mm-hmm.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

That was almost the start of it. And then the conferences have always been kind of aggressive on, on the element, and then it was at revenue share at the conference level.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

But you have schools like the Mountain West or, or conferences like the Mountain West. They're, it's a have not conference. And when you compare that to the SEC, it's a real have not conference. And they are now having trouble competing. You know, they can't compete with these guys.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

became a non-conference,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

a non-conference yet.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

that was a Power Five conference and it got displaced. You're

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah, you really can't get, but those schools can't compete because now you're buying talent

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

yeah,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

so the, you can't, a Boise State is gonna have trouble competing against an Alabama where 10 years ago, Boise State was a, would compete for the national championship.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Well that's the true farm system. Now, if you will like the, the lower group of five conference, again, we're talking football. And probably the same in basketball, but like, you know, these, these lower conferences, they are basically now with the ability to transfer, as Ed said, without having to wait a year on your eligibility and make more money. It's like these, these rosters are getting perpetually plucked you know, if a, if a player is like not a great high school player per se. Five star, four star, they, they go play it, uh, like Utah State or, you know, pick any number of'em like James Madison, although they're kicking some a this year. But being is like, they'll play well and they'll be like, oh, it's like another farm system in baseball. So you then, you then move to a higher, higher school after you've been recruited and played at this lower school. And so it's con perpetually being a feeder system. So you think about the lack of consistency of rosters the power conference, that's magnified times 10 in these

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

'cause you can't even keep anybody if you're if, if you, if you got a star player or a coach for that matter. So

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

private equity is just gonna exacerbate the problem by putting more money into the system to be able to pluck those players and putting in the discipline of the analytics, the kind of the, the pieces they'll take, they'll, they'll put Moneyball to play in college athletics more so than it already is.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah. Be

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Ever moved to the NFL?

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Well, it's already there. I, I believe, and certainly in baseball too, like there are private. Funds that are invested in franchises to some degree, maybe not the majority stake, but certainly minority stakes

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

know the Packers didn't they go public? So like the public can own.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

public since like 1920.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

that's, yeah, definitely

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Okay.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

publicly, they're publicly owned, but,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

yeah. Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

and there used to, the Celtics used to be publicly owned as well, and they went private. But you have, you have a number of, like the NFL for instance, basically has a very rigorous methodology by which they vet ownership. And so it's difficult to be an NFL majority owner and. make enough money that they may not, but what you do see is they are ruthless. They've been ruthless business, business people since the beginning, basically since, you know, the, the ROSELL era and the, the combination of the A-F-L-N-F-L and that, and they're making good money, but anywhere there's money, there's an opportunity for private equity to figure out how to, if, if there's money and inefficiency. Private equity will find a way to get themselves in there. And it could be on the operational side, it could be on STA Stadium Construction. It could be any of those things.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah. Well, and we talked a couple pods ago about, EA Sports and Saudi Wealth Fund. I mean, so, you know, sovereign wealth funds are, are. Very prevalent is investors globally outside of the us. So in, in football clubs, you know, English football clubs or European football clubs, there's a lot of investment from, um, you know, sovereign wealth funds and other, other big funds like that. So it's definitely not novel. Ed made a good point about there's a, maybe a more vetting process. It's not just a free market the us but I don't see why that will stay the case forever if

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Is it at the college level though? At like the university level? Worldwide.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Uh, not that I might, not that I'm aware of. No, no.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Okay.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

have a, we have a fairly unique, yeah, we have a fairly unique college sports. I mean, you have college schools everywhere, almost everywhere, but it is not like the US.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

makes America great in my opinion.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

if this goes through, who are the winners and losers? Like, are there sponsors or donors to these big SEC teams that like lose sway? Is that a loser or do they find a way to plug themselves into the system?

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

are,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

The winner. I think ultimately you're gonna have two, you're gonna have two big winners. I think big winner number one is going to be the student athlete. Because you're gonna continue to pump money in. I think talent, it's gonna be talent acquisition, so it's gonna start looking more and more like Hollywood and less and less like college athletics. So it's gonna be, you know, the student athlete is gonna have the ability to get paid more. The private equity folks are gonna be able to structure an IL deals with, you know, other companies to get the preferred folks paid more. And so I think the college athlete will ultimately. Will ultimately benefit so the talent will benefit. And I think private equity will benefit.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

I think it, you know, they, they rarely go into something where they're, where they don't benefit, you know, so it's, so it's gonna, they'll structure it in such a way that they take advantage of those areas where there's inefficiencies to be had, where they can participate fully and, you know, whether that's stadium construction or, or any of those kind of things, they'll do well. Um, who's gonna suffer, I think ultimately. Is going to be the fan who is gonna be kind of faced with a magnification or intensification of what we've already seen with, you know, schools moving around and working for better deals and, and players moving around looking for better deals of coaches. And then the other one that I think is gonna lose ultimately is going to be the institution who used to be able to, and, the, and the conferences. So the traditional college. Infrastructure around sports where they used to be able to do two things. One, these two sports, men's basketball, men's football would subsidize all the other sports. So that money would all come into the university and then would be used to subsidize women's water polo and you know, men's track and field. And now that's not gonna happen. And then,'cause that money's gonna be. Off to athletes and private equity. And the college itself I think is gonna struggle with a lot of folks. And again, I Rory's a UDub grad. I'm a grad of multiple institutions with college football programs, and we tend to have a strong emotional connection with our alma mater through that sports program. And if that sports program kind of

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

to feel too businessy, that emotional connection will start to fray and. Folks coming up through the system won't build that same loyalty to the alma mater that, that we did growing up. And I think that's, that's gonna be the fundamental difference. That's, that's where you're losing.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

the consumer might suffer, but we'll see, you know, how durable that is over time, you know, like who knows what kind of, um, additional innovations. I mean, I'm already thinking to myself like changing the rules to grant even more eligibility to these folks so that they stay in the system and they don't go to the NFL because maybe they don't have as much incentive. Uh, because they're making more money in college. That's actually already happening that way. But this would be an even much. potential for that if you have governing bodies changing, you know, the NC a a is already somewhat impotent, if you will, in so many ways. And it's gonna become even more so over time if, uh, if more private interests get involved. So, you know, we'll see. Um, it is here, I mean, it's happening. It's, it's definitely not a theoretical at this point, whereas, like I said, five years ago, I would've thought it would be like, no way. But yeah, there's a will. There's way.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Predictions, will this happen?

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Hmm.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

How soon

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

I

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

and what will the result be?

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

yeah, I mean, you know, doubling on a couple of our episodes, I mean like, call it 18 to 24 months from now when we can invest in private equity out of our 401k as retail investors, like we, we can have exposure to this asset class on our own, you know? So yeah, it's happening and it,

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

it It'll happen.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

for

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

it will happen. I think it'll even happen. Yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

this business, it's gonna happen.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

I think it'll happen sooner than 24 months.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

it is as big, if not bigger than the NFL, quite honestly.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yep.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

have simply more programs.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yep. I, I think it'll happen. It'll happen within the next year. I think you'll see the first, I think you'll see the first investments and it's funny, I was thinking about,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

be in the conferences. They'll be like

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

partnerships with the

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

Yep.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

sure.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

And, and they're ready in the bowl games. And I'll bet you the NCAA con, uh. March Madness becomes part of, becomes one of the early dominoes to fall. I think the other piece I was just thinking about, the losers. My old law firm in Syracuse had a significant NCAA practice working, working through the, um, eligibility issues and, you know, whether folks were on probation and dealing with, with some of the issues for enforcement from the NC two A, they're gonna be a loser. Because there's

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

less of that.'cause it's, as Rory noted, it's always been there. And so they would hire, hire our firm to kind of clean up a lot of this stuff. Well, now it's all in the open and it's fine.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

institution. Let's be real about

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

They're,

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Yeah.

fashizzle-baloo--it-is-_1_11-11-2025_152032:

probably struggling now'cause they used to represent the, the colleges against the NC two A on on violations and so there's probably fewer violations and the lawyers are gonna, Rory had talked about the lawyers are gonna get busy. Well that particular firm's lawyers are gonna struggle a little bit'cause they gonna be fewer violations for them to defend.

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

good point. Yeah. Point

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

experience, and we will probably follow up with this one as well in

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

is one to watch.

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

predictions and see how they roll out. But

rory-liebhart_1_11-11-2025_152033:

Go

emily-sander_1_11-11-2025_152034:

thank you, ed. Thank.