The Earthquake is Coming: Venture Capital and the Privatization of College Football

Over the past several days, we have seen the pace of the evolution in college football pick up significant momentum.

The question that is swirling is “why is the NCAA choosing to make an example of Tennessee by applying archaic booster rules to the current NIL environment?”

I believe it is because we are hearing the death rattle from the NCAA.

The NCAA is frightened and has overplayed its hand

The NCAA has had years to produce a workable solution to the current legal landscape of college athletics. Instead of proactively engaging member schools, athletes, state governments, and federal agencies, the NCAA has run and hid. Believing that the courts would halt their efforts, it has chosen paralysis and waited for others to define reality.

Now, facing imminent change, the NCAA is choosing to harass a member institution with the promise of taking on every almost single member institution for something that courts are sure to redefine completely. Nothing the NCAA proposes to do will stand because of the inconsistent application of a patchwork of inapplicable and outdated rules. What the regulators are attempting is way too little, way too late.

Why now?

The question is, why chose now to act. I believe it is because they know that the final act is underway.

Current events are unfolding in a way to reframe the entire situation so that the NCAA becomes completely irrelevant.

Murmurs abound

Over the past few weeks, the undercurrent of rumbles coming from SEC & B1G circles have begun to add up. On Friday, the league’s announced an exploration of a solution to the unregulated mess created by the NCAA’s ineptitude in the face of NIL and almost completely unregulated transfers.

Privately, the rumors go much deeper to point toward substantial movement toward an SEC/B1G football breakaway blessed by major television partners. This new quasi-professional league would include university-based teams that are majority owned by the universities, but are privately funded by capital investment by minority shareholders.

Players would be student-athlete/employees who are competitively compensated and are able to collectively bargain with the league for their wage parameters and working conditions.

The teams and the league they form will be for-profit private ventures that generate significant income for the schools and the athletes they employ.

In the end, I believe this is why schools like Florida State are exploring venture capital investments. Not primarily to buy their way out of their school’s Grant of Rights agreement with the ACC (which I believe will become both become increasingly irrelevant and significantly cheaper in the not so distant future as the SEC/B1G walk away from the NCAA). But instead to capitalize a new business for schools coming from the ACC/Big12 to the new league.

I believe it will soon become apparent that we are living at the historical intersection of both the privatization and the professionalization of the SEC/B1G. And, call me a lunatic, but I believe it will be a done deal by the middle of August with a launch for the 2025 football season.

A little housekeeping

The greatest casualty will be SEC/B1G Olympic sports that will cease to exist. Other lesser team sports like basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer will create their own league championships with television contract funded post-season tournaments as the NCAA championships die a rapid death.

Hang on. It’s about to be a wild ride

What do you think will happen and when? Let’s hear your thoughts with a comment below or at @DrRick_TWO.

Do you agree or disagree?