The business of college sports is about to get upended as schools are forced to share revenue with players. A new business led by RedBird Capital founder Gerry Cardinale is swooping in to help colleges adapt.

College sports is on the precipice of a total about-face of its business model, with the NCAA poised to agree this week on a legal settlement that could soon see schools paying tens of millions to players every year.

The deal wouldn’t just signal an end to amateurism, though—it also stands to upend the economics of an entire industry that had long insisted revenue sharing would make it financially impossible to operate many programs.

Enter private equity.

A new business called Collegiate Athletic Solutions, led by RedBird Capital founder Gerry Cardinale, plans to invest $50 million to $200 million apiece in a select group of universities, Cardinale said. CAS is a partnership between RedBird and Weatherford Capital, founded by former Florida State quarterback Drew Weatherford, who is also a member of the school’s board of trustees. They say they will invest in five to 10 schools to start and are in talks with dozens more, including members of every power conference.

This isn’t a case of private investors looking to buy equity in an athletic department—a 10% stake in the Georgia Bulldogs isn’t for sale. It isn’t a debt instrument, either. Instead, Cardinale says, the idea is to build businesses that help monetize a school’s intellectual property and provide them with the advice and capital to do that at a time when the stakes have never been higher.

“Capitalism is finding everybody,” Cardinale says. “This is about partnering with universities and athletic departments and helping them grow their sports business.”

CAS is launching at a seminal moment. Schools accustomed to relying on free labor will soon have to dedicate big portions of their budget to player pay, under a settlement of litigation brought in federal court in California challenging NCAA restrictions on athletes profiting from their name, image and likeness. What’s more, schools will risk major recruiting and retention problems if they don’t get it right starting in 2025, when the settlement is expected to take effect.

The scenario is starkly at odds with the picture long presented by schools and the NCAA, that revenue-sharing would tank college sports. Yet it’s the reality they now face, and where this new tie-up sees an opening.

“I don’t think we’d be having this conversation five years ago. The landscape has changed so rapidly,” Weatherford says. “And we want to be able to solve real problems that they have.”

The idea is that with Cardinale and Weatherford’s capital and expertise, they can help grow the bottom line for athletic departments. Then, when they do that, CAS gets compensated by helping generate those additional future dollars—almost like a royalty, Weatherford says.

They see opportunities not only in the sports that traditionally have made the most money, football and men’s basketball, but also the ones that are often subsidized by those revenue drivers. They point to the growth in women’s basketball, volleyball and softball as examples, adding that while they will have no control over how athletic departments spend their money, they see plenty of opportunities in the industry.

While Cardinale’s firm owns Italian soccer giant AC Milan and is in control of the day-to-day running of the team, this would be more similar to Legends Hospitality, a merchandising and concessions business he started with the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees in 2008. When it was sold in 2021, it was valued at over $1 billion.

It’s no surprise veterans in private equity cash, which has taken on an increased role in professional sports, have set their eyes on the college game—and not just because the end of unpaid talent is about to reshape the sport’s finances. There’s also blockbuster media rights deals, conference realignment and the transfer portal, turbocharged by players’ ability to make money through name, image and likeness deals.

“There’s a need for capital to address that,” said Cardinale. “There’s a tremendous need for responsible capital partners for athletic department programs and universities.”

College athletes won the right to profit off of the use of their name, image and likeness starting in 2021, with big-name players making millions of dollars they never had before. But while players could haul in money from sponsors and collectives of boosters, they couldn’t be paid directly by schools, for their performance on the field.

Now they can—and the future success of athletic departments may hinge on doing that efficiently in the next five to 10 years.

“Roster management and actually taking that $20 million and investing it wisely into athletes and managing your rosters in a professional manner is going to be extremely important,” Weatherford said.

“I think a lot is going to change, and nobody wants to be on the outside looking in when the carousel stops.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683275)

They also ace OCI at high rates

They’re being compensated already imho

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683432)

how is 2020 different than 2010, 2000, 1990?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683454)

The total cost of attendance, including tuition & fees, books & supplies costs, and living costs, increased by 40.69% from 2012 ($40,327), where OSU's current cost is $56,737. In 2024, the COA is increased by 4.25% from last year.

The Ohio State University Board of Trustees today (6/5) agreed that tuition for Ohio resident undergraduates will remain frozen at the 2006-2007 annual level of $8,406 for the upcoming 2009-2010 academic year, in accordance with the state of Ohio budget requirements.

"This will be the first time in more than 50 years – since 1955 – that resident undergraduate tuition had stayed at zero percent growth for more than two years," said William J. Shkurti, senior vice president for business and finance.

The board approved a series of student fees and charges for activities and services that are self-supporting or receive no state support or tuition dollars.

The mandatory student recreation fee will remain at $246 for three quarters. A Student Union facility fee of $27 will be implemented for the first time in Spring Quarter, when the new facility is due to open, bringing total tuition and mandatory fees, which also include a $27 COTA student bus pass, to $8,706 for full-time, Ohio undergraduates.

Room and board for three academic quarters, will increase by 4.6 percent, or $372, to an average of $8,409 depending on room type and meal plan.

The non-resident undergraduate surcharge at the Columbus campus will increase 2.5 percent to $13,572, increasing annual cost for a non-resident undergraduate to $22,278.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683532)

Those 97 students drive the great majority of the athletics revenue growth. One could easily drill it down even further and find that, within that group of 97 students, probably 10-15 of them are responsible for at least half of the growth in any given year.

The increase benefit of attending the college, in the form of increase tuition, is pennies on the dollar of their true value. All you are doing is advocating for bureaucrats to get rich instead. It's a really ridiculous position to take, frankly, and your point about tuition going up has no relevance.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684042)

absent something else, there isn't 'more' money being created by the athletes now as there was then.

colleges were 'rolling in it' then, then and then, just as they are now. for the same reasons.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684546)

I went on a tour of the new UGA football facility. Its a fucking palace, absolutely magnificent. No expense spared.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684935)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683445)

claim it was always unsustainable

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683452)

yes there was, but it wasn't allowed to exist because ncaa rules

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47683517)

Then they came for the local prosecutors' offices and doj voting rights section, and I did not speak out--for I was not a layabout government employee driving a honda civic.

Now they come for SEC football....

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684122)

It has spiralled into a level of shit that even I could not have envisioned, all due to paying players.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684050)

I could even see letting them get paid for shit like autographs or something minimal. But now that they get sponsorships and top players leaving schools for better "pay" at other schools is fucking ridiculous.

and by the way, somehow all of the big name players were driving super expensive cars and some of them even told me about getting secret bags of cash left for them etc.

So youve got that. Versus what we have now, which is fucking shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684214)

You have no problem with universities and athletic departments and coaches and everyone affiliated with them making millions but you have a huge problem with the actual athletes being paid.

By the way, you ran cross country or did track or some faggy shit so you were actually a drag and a welfare case for the univeristy bc your sport didn't generate jack shit. That's a world apart from basketball and football and probably even baseball at many schools.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684574)

Right. And as it turns out, I was exactly right.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684896)

is it possible that CFB hasn't gotten worse but instead your T levels have dropped due to age such that you don't enjoy CFB anymore?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684098)

The FSU 2023 bowl game fiasco where like half the team sat out was the nail in the coffin.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684203)

Schools would use profits from their football program to fund a trust that issues "tuition rebates" each year in proportion to the profitability of the football team. These tuition rebates must be treated as securities so that the students may benefit from access to a strong and active derivatives market.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684212)

if all d1 football players received the same amount, there wouldn't be problems. well, there wouldn't be these problems.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684548)

Universities are poorly managed as a rule.

The market will sort it out. It will take a decade or so, but there will be a market for players just like the pros, but with much less regulation. The non-profitable sports will be gutted.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684586)

The next interation is detailed contacts. Look at the Jaden Rashada lawsuit on what to avoid.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684622)

No one cares about college sports and we need to cut away the oh he plays. Sport scholarship and AA boost for everything except profitable sports. If everything other than football, top 100 basketball, a couple dozen hockey and baseball teams in college sports disappeared tomorrow no one would care.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684646)

the arabs could make this work by sponsoring an alabama vs clemson game in [name arab location]

not going to work by naming the stadium uae stadium

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47684806)

giving a flying fuck about niggers throwing pigskins

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47685196)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5531468&forum_id=2...id.#47685518)