Report: Big 12 weighing up to $1 billion private equity investment for 20% of league

It seems only a matter of time until private equity takes a significant foothold in college athletics and the Big 12 may be poised to make the first leap, according to a report from CBS Sports.

The outlet reports that the Big 12 is considering a private equity investment with a cash infusion of $800 million to $1 billion from Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners in exchange for a 15-20% stake in the league.

That cash infusion would go in part directly to conference members to help with ballooning costs, while the partnership would also give the league access to CVC investment services and clients.

How close any sort of deal is to fruition remains to be seen.

CBS Sports notes that while the talks are “pretty serious,” many of the Big 12’s presidents “need further convincing.”

One of the reasons the Big 12 might entertain the idea of a private equity stake in the conference is the growing gap between the Big 12 and the Big Ten and SEC when it comes to TV revenue distribution.

While the Big Ten is set to haul in roughly $75 million per school as part of its new media rights deal with FOX, CBS and NBC, Big 12 teams are currently receiving about $32 million per year for their agreement with FOX and ESPN.

The Big 12’s current media deal is set to end in 2031.

The new SEC media rights deal begins in 2024

One of the things that has put pressure on other conferences is the start of the new SEC media rights deal, which is slated to begin in 2024.

The new deal takes effect this summer as the conference expands with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas.

The SEC inked a 10-year deal with ESPN and ABC worth nearly $3 billion in late 2020, and in Summer 2021, OU and Texas announced their plans to leave the Big 12 to join the league. Now with 16 teams, its new look will debut with Florida vs. Miami on Aug. 31.

While the new deal will add significant coin to the coffers of one of college football’s most popular conferences, commissioner Greg Sankey hailed the deal as being a huge win for the SEC’s reach.

“What that does, and it’s something about which I’ve spoken but gets lost, is when we move to the ABC-ESPN group, we have access to more broadcast TV opportunities than perhaps we’ve ever had, certainly in recent decades,” Sankey said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “In other words, 130-plus million households with access to broadcast TV, we could literally program an ABC game at noon Eastern, 3:30 Eastern and then, that primetime window on particular Saturdays. Now, ABC and ESPN have other contractual commitments. But that’s an illustration of the breadth of reach that we are about to experience.

“And we respect and appreciate our relationship with CBS, but our move to work under the Disney heading was about more than just revenue. It was about reach, so reach through broadcast TV, reach through cable and satellite, which obviously is a changing environment.”