When I first heard that a university was about to let private equity into college sports, I figured it would be one of the usual suspects – maybe a Texas or an Ohio State with bottomless booster money. Instead, it was Utah. Quiet, steady, mountain-west Utah. And just like that, the seal is broken.
The University of Utah didn’t sell its soul. They didn’t hand over the football program to some hedge fund bros in Patagonia vests. What they did was far more calculated – and potentially far more influential.
The Deal That Changes Everything
This week, Utah announced the creation of a new for-profit entity called Utah Brands & Entertainment LLC. The university foundation owns it 100%. But here’s the twist: they’ve brought in Otro Capital, a private equity firm with experience in sports and media, as a minority investor and operating partner. Reports put the capital raise at north of $500 million. Half a billion dollars. For context, that’s roughly what Alabama’s entire athletic department brought in last year.
Let that sink in for a second.
This isn’t a loan. It’s not debt on the university’s books. It’s growth capital tied directly to the commercial side of Utah athletics – media rights, sponsorships, ticketing, merchandise, the whole revenue engine. The athletic department keeps full operational control. Coaches still report to the AD, the AD reports to the president, and the president answers to the board. Same as always.
But now there’s serious money behind the machine.
Why Utah? And Why Now?
People keep asking why Utah went first. The answer is pretty straightforward: survival.
The upcoming House v. NCAA settlement is expected to cost Power conference schools somewhere between $15–22 million per year in direct athlete revenue sharing starting in 2025–26. Add in the exploding cost of Name, Image, and Likeness deals, roster limits going away, and the transfer portal turning rosters into yearly, and you’ve got a financial tsunami heading straight for every athletic department that isn’t named Georgia or Michigan.
Utah’s leadership looked at the numbers and realized their current model – heavy on student fees and state support – simply wouldn’t hold under the new reality. They needed a new pool of capital that didn’t burden taxpayers or tuition-paying students.
“The cost of supporting a nationally competitive athletics program has risen dramatically and far outpaces revenue growth.”
– University of Utah President Taylor Randall & AD Mark Harlan
Translation: We can’t keep asking 18-year-olds paying $8,000 in student fees to subsidize football anymore. Not when the players are about to get paid directly.
How the Structure Actually Works (And Why It Matters)
Here’s the part everyone’s trying to wrap their head around:
- The university retains 100% ownership and full governance control
- Private equity gets a minority stake and board observation rights
- PE firm brings operational expertise in sponsorship sales, digital content, and brand building
- All athletic decisions – coaching hires, recruiting, game day ops – stay with the AD
- Capital is deployed over several years for facility upgrades, NIL collectives (indirectly), and revenue-generating initiatives
It’s basically the university saying: “We’ll keep driving the car, but we’re happy to have a world-class mechanic in the passenger seat – and we’ll give him a cut of the upside if he helps us win races.”
That last part is key. Private equity doesn’t do charity. They’re here because they believe college sports assets are chronically undervalued. Think about it – you’ve got 18–22-year-old fan bases, captive alumni networks, and media rights that keep going up despite cord-cutting. From a pure investment perspective, it’s actually kind of insane no one did this sooner.
The Charlie Baker Seal of Approval
Even NCAA President Charlie Baker – who has spent years warning schools to “be really careful” with private equity – gave Utah’s model a surprising thumbs-up this week.
He called it “really well thought out and really well designed” specifically because decision-making stays inside the university. That’s huge. Baker’s biggest fear has always been outside investors gaining control and turning college sports into minor-league pro leagues with 18-year-old kids.
Utah seems to have threaded the needle.
Who’s Next? (My Money’s On…)
Once the first domino falls, the rest tend to follow quickly. I’d watch these programs closely over the next 12–18 months:
- Schools in the Big 12 and ACC with strong brands but thinner booster bases (think Cincinnati, Louisville, Pittsburgh)
- Group of 5 programs looking to punch above their weight (Memphis, Boise State, maybe even USF)
- Private schools with limited state support (Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Wake Forest)
- Anyone about to build a new basketball arena or football stadium renovation
The beauty of Utah’s model is that it scales. A school doing $80 million in revenue can use the same blueprint as one doing $180 million. The only real limit is how much commercial upside investors believe exists.
The Bigger Picture: Is This Good for College Sports?
Here’s where I land, and I suspect a lot of fans will hate hearing it:
This was inevitable.
College sports have been a multi-billion-dollar commercial enterprise wearing an “amateurism” Halloween costume for decades. The costume finally ripped. You can either keep pretending it’s 1955, or you can build a sustainable model for 2035.
Private equity isn’t the boogeyman. Bad governance is the boogeyman. Schools that give up control, over-leverage themselves on facilities arms races, or tie their future to shady collectives – those are the ones who will get hurt.
But schools that use outside capital intelligently? To upgrade facilities, yes, but also to professionalize marketing, grow international audiences, build direct-to-consumer platforms, and yes – pay athletes fairly without gutting Olympic sports? That feels like progress.
The genie isn’t going back in the bottle. Utah just figured out how to give it a job instead of letting it run wild.
Final Thought
Five years from now, we’ll either look back at this week as the moment college sports grew up – or the moment they sold out.
I’m betting on the former. Because the alternative – pretending $20 million roster bills can be paid with bake sales and hope – was never realistic.
Utah didn’t break the seal. They just admitted it was already cracked.
And sometimes, admitting you have a problem is the first step toward building something better.
