Greg Byrne reveals stance on private equity involvement at Alabama

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne is not a fan of private equity involvement, at least at his school. This came on the heels of schools like Penn State and UCLA taking the first eight-figure private capital deals with Elevate.

Byrne figured private equity firms would come for Alabama knowing the brand power. However, Byrne said it’s all about the dollar sign as long as it’s above the breaking even line.

The Crimson Tide AD acknowledged private equities are good at what they do, so this could be a big win for whoever invests. However, it’s going to be about the big two sports, football and basketball, and everyone else will fight for scraps.

“We have had all sorts of people from private equity come at us,” Byrne said on McElroy and Cubelic. “We’re Alabama, so people have, they often want to have us involved in different things. And I have not seen a model that makes any sense whatsoever. Private equity is not going to care about Olympic sports. They’re not going to care about the academics and what responsibilities we have there. They are bottom line driven. They’re really good at what they do. Could I see a program ever doing that? I guess, but private equity is going to want their return.”

Byrne didn’t want to brag, but Alabama was trying to get ahead of the curve when it comes to money dealings such as these. Especially with the House Settlement approving revenue sharing, Byrne made it clear he wants to stay as close as possible to the fabric of college athletics.

“And I talked to a lot of them, have brought in people from the professional sports ranks to be involved with what they’re doing. And we’ve had conversations with them, and some of them have said, well, have you thought about doing this? And like, Well, yeah, we’ve been doing this for four years, you know,” Byrne said. 

“And not to say that we got it all figured out. We are open minded, we are, but at the same time too, you know, at some point you’re gonna have to pay the piper if you have private equity, and so you better make sure that you can far exceed the growth that you can do on your own if you’re going to bring somebody else. Because we do have a responsibility in so many different ways that maybe doesn’t make a lot of business sense. But it’s important to the fiber in the fabric of what college athletics represents.”