Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Shehan Jeyarajah on the Big 12 Private Equity deal, Brendan Sorsby heading to NFL early (?) + more

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Shehan Jeyarajah on the Big 12 Private Equity deal, Brendan Sorsby heading to NFL early (?) + more · The Sean O'Connell Show

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  Speaker 1: You were listening to my Sean O'Connell show. You a
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  Speaker 1: source for the best Hutes football copy. Here's OC from
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  Speaker 1: the Murdoch Hundai Studio of DESPN seven hundred at ninety
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  Speaker 1: two to one a half am.
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  Speaker 2: Today's on You. Welcome to our number three on the
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  Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell Show. Welcome in, Shahanja Raja, national college football
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  Speaker 2: writer over at CBS Sports. Shahan, Welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
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  Speaker 2: Can I congratulate you also on something that I just
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  Speaker 2: learned from your Twitter the first National Writing Award, the
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  Speaker 2: solo national Writing award of your career, the Excellence in
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  Speaker 2: Sports Reporting Award from the AAJA for your Texas Tech
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  Speaker 2: piece last year, which all of us read that you
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  Speaker 2: and I talked about on this very show. Congratulations Shahan.
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  Speaker 2: That's pretty cool. Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely wasn't something I expected, but very very excited.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome, and you know what, you're great at the job,
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  Speaker 2: so you deserve it. Let's jump into what's going on
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  Speaker 2: in and around the Big twelve. I want to start
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  Speaker 2: with the big picture news we got. I guess it
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  Speaker 2: was last week now that the conference has reached a
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  Speaker 2: private equity deal that will allow up to thirty million
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  Speaker 2: dollars of cash to come in per program I should
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  Speaker 2: say per university voluntary opt in kind of a situation.
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  Speaker 2: It's also going to bring money in to the League Office.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, on a surface level, it looks like
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  Speaker 2: a pretty typical private equity partnership. They're not going to
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  Speaker 2: have a ton of decision making according to the League
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  Speaker 2: Office power to you know, make changes, at least not
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  Speaker 2: as of now. There's like a sunset clause potentially to
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  Speaker 2: look at. But I know that you you dive into
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  Speaker 2: the details a lot more successfully than the rest of
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  Speaker 2: us do. So give me your thoughts on this private
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  Speaker 2: equity agreement in partnership with the Big Twelve. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So the biggest thing to know about it, right, is
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  Speaker 3: there is a distinction between private equity and private capital,
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  Speaker 3: and so essentially what private capital is, which is what
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  Speaker 3: the Big Twelve is primarily doing. I mean it's essentially alone, right,
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  Speaker 3: it's alone with some strategic partnership involved. There isn't necessarily
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  Speaker 3: selling of equity stake, right, so that these outside groups
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  Speaker 3: don't necessarily own these schools, or own the League or anything.
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  Speaker 3: Like that, But it does come with some strings, right.
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  Speaker 3: It comes with obviously an expectation that that money will
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  Speaker 3: be returned with interest. In many cases, it comes with
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  Speaker 3: the expectation that certainly these outside groups feel at least
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  Speaker 3: some ownership involved of what happens next with these conferences
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  Speaker 3: and these programs, And so it'll be a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of walking upon line of both trying to take care
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  Speaker 3: of your financial interests while also trying to maximize the
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  Speaker 3: money available to you to try to put yourself in
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  Speaker 3: the best position. Now, I think that's for Big twelve
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  Speaker 3: schools right now, there is kind of this understanding that
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  Speaker 3: something is probably going to happen in college football in
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  Speaker 3: twenty thirty, twenty thirty one, whenever a lot of these
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  Speaker 3: conference media rights deals expire. You know, does that look
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  Speaker 3: like a super league? Does that look like a breakoff
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  Speaker 3: of major college football. We don't really know the answer
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  Speaker 3: to that question, but I think that there's sort of
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  Speaker 3: this understanding that, you know what, we don't want to
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  Speaker 3: have programs that aren't ready for this moment financially when
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  Speaker 3: that time comes. So if we have to take a short,
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  Speaker 3: long term hit, we need it for that short term benefit.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting because when I think of, Okay, what makes
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  Speaker 2: a team ready for impending changes three four, excuse me,
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  Speaker 2: five years down the road, and if part of what
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  Speaker 2: makes that team ready for those changes is more debt,
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  Speaker 2: I start to balk at that a little bit. If
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  Speaker 2: this is, you know, credit, and you're borrowing and you're
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  Speaker 2: having to pay these things back with interest, and you're
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  Speaker 2: leveraging against future revenues and invitation to something else, a
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  Speaker 2: better television deal, and the revenue associated with that, to me,
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  Speaker 2: it's scary because it feels like you're just getting further
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  Speaker 2: and further behind the eight ball while I'm also reading
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  Speaker 2: stuff about the Big Ten handing ninety million dollars to
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State from the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: five fiscal year. So on one hand, I'm applauding the
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  Speaker 2: effort here to try to close the gap. On the
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  Speaker 2: other hand, I'm concerned that the gap just continues to
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  Speaker 2: widen because it's not it's not profit necessarily, it's it's
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  Speaker 2: a leverage against future profits.
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  Speaker 3: No, and it's it's a totally fair question, and it's
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  Speaker 3: one that I think that a lot of these programs
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  Speaker 3: and teams are going to have to answer. And by
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  Speaker 3: the way, it's part of this deal. Big twelve schools
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  Speaker 3: are not required to take the money, right They're not
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  Speaker 3: required to take this infusion of capital, and some may
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  Speaker 3: decide not to. This is I think more than anything
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  Speaker 3: else for let's call it the you know, bottom half
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  Speaker 3: of Big twelve schools that's really struggling with capital right now.
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  Speaker 3: You know the schools that you know. I mean again
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  Speaker 3: I don't have any information at this point who is
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  Speaker 3: confirmed to take it. But you think of like the
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  Speaker 3: EYOEW with States of the World. You think about it
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  Speaker 3: of you know, UCF maybe coming in and trying to
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  Speaker 3: have an infusion of capital. You think about it with
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  Speaker 3: the you know, the four newcomers that transitioned up from
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  Speaker 3: the group of six that didn't have full payouts until
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  Speaker 3: very recently. So you know, maybe that can help take
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  Speaker 3: care of some short term debts and maybe you're trading
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  Speaker 3: that off for again a lower interest rate. So it
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  Speaker 3: just depends. I mean, every one of these schools has
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  Speaker 3: to take all these considerations into account. But like you said,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the Big ten has all this money flowing out.
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  Speaker 3: And again, the between the Big ten SEC and the
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  Speaker 3: Big twelve ACC continues to grow. But even with that context,
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  Speaker 3: the Big ten is looking into equity deals as well
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  Speaker 3: and capital deals as well, because nobody has a necessarily
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  Speaker 3: great idea of what's going to happen next, and they're
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  Speaker 3: trying to build themselves up to a point where they
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  Speaker 3: can survive whatever comes next. So this is not just
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  Speaker 3: an issue that let's call it the bottom half, bottom
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  Speaker 3: third of the power conferences is dealing with. This is
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  Speaker 3: an issue that seventy five percent of the power conferences
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  Speaker 3: are dealing with, and they're trying to again because we
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  Speaker 3: know that Ohio State is going to be fine in
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  Speaker 3: the next iteration of whatever. We know that Texas and
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  Speaker 3: Georgia are going to be fine. Everybody else is trying
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  Speaker 3: to figure out can I save myself a seat?
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  Speaker 2: Sahanj Raja, our guest here on the Shuttle Conna show
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  Speaker 2: talking all things Big twelve for now. That was gonna
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  Speaker 2: be one of my questions for you, like who ops in,
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  Speaker 2: who ops out? I think it's safe to say here
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  Speaker 2: in the state of Utah BYU and their athletic department
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  Speaker 2: and their university, as I think they were asked about it.
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  Speaker 2: When Utah did the private equity deal with with Ultra Capital,
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  Speaker 2: and the response for BYU at that time was yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we're not going to get involved in this kind of thing,
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  Speaker 2: and we haven't heard anything that would reverse that sentiment
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  Speaker 2: between then and now. So I think BYU is probably
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  Speaker 2: on the outside looking in. We associate Texas Tech partially
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  Speaker 2: because of that award winning article you wrote with like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, big time money, and so maybe there's not
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  Speaker 2: as much of a need there. Do we think that
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  Speaker 2: the that the flush members of the Big twelve for
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  Speaker 2: lack of a better term, will just say hey, no,
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  Speaker 2: thank you, And if so, does that change their relationship
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  Speaker 2: with the conference at all?
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  Speaker 3: I certainly don't think that it will hurt any relationships
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  Speaker 3: or change any relationship with the conference. I mean, this
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  Speaker 3: is this is an opportunity for teams from the conference.
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  Speaker 3: In their eyes, this isn't necessarily a commitment in that way.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I think that you mentioned right BYU has done a
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  Speaker 3: really good job of raising money and putting themselves in
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  Speaker 3: a good position competitively in all this, and they don't
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  Speaker 3: seem likely to do it. And also, I mean I
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  Speaker 3: think that for a number of you know, financial afs,
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  Speaker 3: but whatever you want to call it reasons like I
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  Speaker 3: think that by you would be a little more reluctant
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  Speaker 3: to do it than most teams. I think tex Tech
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  Speaker 3: is interesting because, for one, you know, if you have
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  Speaker 3: everybody talked about Cody Campbell, it's really like six or
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  Speaker 3: seven guys who are all billionaires are close to billionaires.
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  Speaker 3: If you can get a short term essentially loan from
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  Speaker 3: one of them and even potentially pay some of it back, Like,
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  Speaker 3: does that make up for the fact that you don't
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  Speaker 3: take on thirty million dollars in debt from outside capital?
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  Speaker 3: Maybe right, Like, maybe that's something to take into consideration.
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  Speaker 3: So I do know that that Redbird Capital, specifically some
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  Speaker 3: of the founders that it have some ties to text
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  Speaker 3: sex and maybe that is a thought right that you
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  Speaker 3: know what, these are partners at each So I don't
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  Speaker 3: know that it'scessarily going to strictly break down. You know,
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  Speaker 3: the poorest schools are all going to take money, the
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  Speaker 3: richest schools are not. Because here's something else to think about,
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  Speaker 3: is like, if Texas Tech has thirty million more dollars
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  Speaker 3: to create more value over the next few years, you know,
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  Speaker 3: maybe they might just do that. But I do think
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  Speaker 3: that we certainly are going to see it with some
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  Speaker 3: of these programs, let's call it the programs that are
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  Speaker 3: struggling to get up to that twenty million dollar rev
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  Speaker 3: share number. Right Because even if you want to get
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  Speaker 3: into the logistics of all of this, like Texas Tech
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  Speaker 3: is trying to push their repshare and their NIO higher
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  Speaker 3: and higher through these outside means, there are other schools
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  Speaker 3: in the Big twelve that are just trying to stay
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  Speaker 3: at that twenty million dollar number. I think that this
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  Speaker 3: infusion of capital is going to be more useful for
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  Speaker 3: those teams than necessarily the high dollar teams.
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  Speaker 2: This is probably an unfair question to ask, but it's
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  Speaker 2: one that I asked when Utah finalized it's private equity deal,
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  Speaker 2: and it's a question I've had when the Big Ten
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  Speaker 2: talked about exploring, you know, outside sources, and now that
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  Speaker 2: we have it in the in the Big twelve, if
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  Speaker 2: you are a member of the Matador Club, if you're
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  Speaker 2: Cody Campbell and Company, and you're seeing the conference, be like, hey, like,
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  Speaker 2: we're gonna get money from these outside sources, but we're
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  Speaker 2: going to pay it back with interest, as you already mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: or in the case of Utah, we're gonna get money
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  Speaker 2: from outside sources, but they're going to then have an
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  Speaker 2: equity stake in our athletic department. If you're a traditional
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  Speaker 2: booster as we've always defined them, where you're gifting this
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  Speaker 2: type of stuff, Is there another level of financial commitment?
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  Speaker 2: Is there another level to unlock from a Cody Campbell
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  Speaker 2: to say, yeah, yeah, Like if you want an extra
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  Speaker 2: thirty million dollars from me, I have it, but I've
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  Speaker 2: already given you all the gifts I'm gonna give you.
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  Speaker 2: The charity is done. Give me a piece of Red
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  Speaker 2: Raider Athletics, or give me a six percent interest rate
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  Speaker 2: or whatever. Well, this potentially alter the way that boosters
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  Speaker 2: at Big twelve schools and elsewhere have a financial relationship
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  Speaker 2: with their universities.
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  Speaker 3: There is actually, and this is something I've thought about
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  Speaker 3: trying to do over you know, maybe this offseason or
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  Speaker 3: maybe the next year. Like, there is something to be
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  Speaker 3: said and talked about with the concept of what are
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  Speaker 3: boosters getting in exchange for money? And this has been
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  Speaker 3: this is like, this is a question that dates back
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  Speaker 3: a century, right, Like this has been happening since we
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  Speaker 3: had football in the fifties and sixties and donors were
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  Speaker 3: getting money, and I think that some of this stuff
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  Speaker 3: is still true, right, Like one big piece of it is, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: you're getting access, you're getting influence, you're getting reputation, like
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  Speaker 3: Cody Campbell is now. I mean, first of all, he's
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  Speaker 3: chair of the board of tech Tech University, so I
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  Speaker 3: mean in practice, right, he's very involved in the running
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  Speaker 3: of the university, but he's also kind of a local
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  Speaker 3: micro celebrity. He gets unlimited access to these people. He's
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: part of the planning process. He almost get some of
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  Speaker 3: the benefits of, like you said, owning a professional franchise,
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  Speaker 3: without necessarily the liabilities of owning a franchise at the
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  Speaker 3: same time. Now, I think where it gets interesting, right,
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  Speaker 3: is that, like this has been a passion play, I
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: guess you'd call it for a very long time, that
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  Speaker 3: this is a place that you know what, We're going
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  Speaker 3: to put tens of millions of my dollars, hundreds of
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  Speaker 3: millions of my dollars into this athletic department because I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: like it and care for it, and because I want
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  Speaker 3: a place that I care about to succeed.
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  Speaker 1: Well.
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  Speaker 3: Again, like you said, I mean, the more that this
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  Speaker 3: keeps getting corporatized, and the more that it keeps getting monetized,
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  Speaker 3: and the more that it's always been a business. But
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  Speaker 3: this is obviously as business as it's ever gotten. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I think less about the idea of loaning and you know,
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  Speaker 3: school z owing money back to boosters, and I think
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  Speaker 3: a lot more about the context of like why would
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  Speaker 3: you do it? Right, Like, like, at what point do
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  Speaker 3: you just say, well, you know, you've got all this money,
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  Speaker 3: You've got all this revenue flowing in, Like why am
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: I going to donate to you? And again, you know
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  Speaker 3: right now that has not come to effect. But like
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  Speaker 3: at one point in time when you donated X amount
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: of dollars, what they did was they put your name
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: up on the football stadium. Yeah, and when you give
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: it to a quarterback, you transfers after a year and
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  Speaker 3: a half, you don't get that same return on investment
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  Speaker 3: even personally.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's a've we've talked about
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  Speaker 2: and we've read about donor fatigue at other places, and
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: you know, it's usually like like a Troy Aikman, it's
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: somebody we already know that's already famous, who's just like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I don't really I gave money, and you know, the
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: kid left, or the kid didn't even know where the
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  Speaker 2: money came from, or didn't even want to shake my
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: hand or whatever. And so I think it's a very
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: real situation, and it's one of the things, one of
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the many, many hurdles that need to be overcome in
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the world of college sports sooner than later. Shahanji Rajah
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: for a few more minutes here on the Shan Show
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: that this isn't even more interesting and fascinating story for me.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Brendan Soresby and his gambling scandal. He checked into a
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: gambling rehab facility. We go back through the history and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: he was at Indiana, he was gambling on Indiana games
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't look like ones that he actually played in, but
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: gambling on Indiana games when he was there. When he
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: was at Cincinnati, he was gambling. When he's at Texas Tech.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I think we can assume like something is probably still
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: going on, and now that it's caught up with them,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: he's at risk of losing his eligibility. He's retained the attorney,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Kessler, to try to keep that college eligibility. There's
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the NFL supplemental Draft. If that can't happen. How do
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: you process the Brendan Soresby saga and what it's going
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to mean not only for him but for Texas Tech.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, it's huge, obviously. I mean, but
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: when I look at this team, I think it's going
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: to matter more for the sealing of Tech to Texas
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: here than the floor.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: First of all, I mean, look, if Will Hammond doesn't
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: tear his acl last year, I don't think that they're
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: taking this kind of swing on a quarterback in the portal,
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  Speaker 3: But now they did. Obviously, you know, we don't know.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: I full Hammon is going to be back by week one.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: That's a huge question mark hanging over the program. And
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: then the other thing too, is like the uncertainty of
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: all this is also something that makes it just a
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: little bit worse. You mentioned, of course, Brendan soorsby retaining
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Jeffery Kessler, who, like you said, is the attorney who
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: negotiated the house agreement on the side of the player.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So essentially the NCAA's worst nightmare. Right, So when you
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: talk about lawyers, but you know, depending on what the
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: data is, I mean, the data might be what the
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: data is at this point right. I mean, if he
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: explicitly broke some of these rules, like you're getting to
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: the level of trying to challenge and court, the idea
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: of players not being able to gamble on their own
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: games like that is probably not something that's you know,
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  Speaker 3: that's something that's probably going to hold up even you know,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: when you talk about some of these new rules and regulations.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: So ultimately, I think that Tech teg will be okay.
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  Speaker 3: I think that even if they have the low average
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  Speaker 3: quarterback play, they're gonna have a top three defense in
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  Speaker 3: the Big Twelve. To me, they might have the most
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  Speaker 3: talented running game in the Big Twelve or up there
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  Speaker 3: with you know, teams like Utah and BYU, and so
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  Speaker 3: I think it's still a team that, especially when you
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: look at their schedule, they're gonna have a really good
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: chance to be in the Big Twelve title game. They're
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: gonna have a really good chance to maybe win the
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Big Twelve and make the make the playoffs. But I
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  Speaker 3: will say the difference between Brendan Sorosby being on the
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  Speaker 3: roster and whoever else is playing quarterback being on the
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  Speaker 3: roster is that I don't think they can win a
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: playoff game without plus quarterback play, and I don't know
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  Speaker 3: that they're guaranteed it. With sores be potentially.
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  Speaker 2: Out for him personally, there's the prospect of fighting to
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: try to maintain his eligibility. I assume that also means
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: maintaining the nil contract that is reported at somewhere around
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: six million dollars with Texas Tech. There's also the factor of,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you know, having to pay money back to Cincinnati. But
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: a little non throwaway fact here is that apparently Cincinnati
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: learned about him gambling before his last year with Cincinnati,
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  Speaker 2: and I guess didn't report it, didn't investigate, didn't punish
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  Speaker 2: him for it. Will that change the buyout relationship between
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Soresby and Cincinnati, I guess in any case, Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: And I want to be clear at this point, right
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: nothing's you know, all this is still alleged. You know,
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: it's going to depend a little bit on you know, again,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the nc doublea's investigation, because if Cincinnati knew that that
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: he was gambling and didn't report it like that could
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: potentially be ground for Cincinnati to be in a lot
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: of trouble, potentially ruling him ineligible for the twenty twenty
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: five season and vacating some of those wins and punishing
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: them like, there's a lot of different levels to this,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: depending on what exactly the data is. Again,