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1 week ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy |Chris Smith
Private equity has finally come to college sports. Elevate is set to announce the creation of the Collegiate Investment Initiative, a $500 million initiative backed by PE firm Velocity Capital Management and the Texas Permanent School Fund, Sports Business Journal has learned. The investment vehicle will provide a new funding source for collegiate athletics programs pursuing capital-intensive projects like facility upgrades and renovations.
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1 week ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
College sports received one of the most consequential rulings in its history on Friday -- and the man charged with enforcing the rules laid out by it has also come into the public sphere. Longtime MLB exec Bryan Seeley is expected to become CEO of the College Sports Commission, the new governance body created in the wake of the approval of the House settlement, a spokesperson for the Power conferences confirmed to SBJ. The CDC is expected to be operational July 1.
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1 week ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
One of the most significant legal efforts in modern college sports history reached a resolution Friday. Judge Claudia Wilken has approved a settlement in the House, Hubbard and Carter antitrust cases, opening the door for schools to pay athletes directly beginning July 1.
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1 week ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
Taymar Sales U. and Austin Peay are set to announce a multiyear partnership, sources told Sports Business Journal. The agreement will include partnering on sponsorships, ticket sales and annual giving, making the school the first to partner with Taymar across all three verticals. Taymar will have a five-person team on site to support each avenue of business. An official announcement is expected on Friday.
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2 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
Learfield is set to add a significant player on the West Coast. The company is announcing a new 15-year multimedia rights partnership with USC on Thursday, Sports Business Journal has learned. Financial terms of the deal -- which is expected to begin in 2026 at the conclusion of USC’s current agreement with Playfly -- were not disclosed. USC had previously worked with Learfield through its ticketing platform, Paciolan, and website solution, Sidearm Sports.
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2 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
It’s been about five weeks since my wedding, so, naturally, I decided to add a little more chaos into the fold by moving across town from my apartment and into our first house over the last week. After hauling all those boxes, I think it’s time to avoid any more major life events for a little while -- at least for a few weeks. But one event I won’t be avoiding is NACDA. My boss, Abe Madkour, and I are hosting three panels at the convention, which begins Sunday and runs through June 11 in Orlando.
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2 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
It’s not every day an all-time country artist and a MAC school situated in Northwest Ohio combine to create something that both feels special and generates a new source of revenue. That is, until the Zac Brown Band and Toledo came together for the group’s May 24 concert at the Glass Bowl in front of 18,000 fans. “All of us in college athletics are looking for new revenue streams,” Toledo AD Bryan Blair told me. “We’re a campus that wants to get more people onto our campus to see how gorgeous it is.
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2 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
As I’ve written here before, Brett Yormark is a dealmaker by nature. He was hired to replace Bob Bowlsby to, among other measures, get a media rights deal done. He did that. He’s done plenty else since. But as the Big 12 capped its annual meetings in Orlando late last week, Yormark revealed the conference has paused on its dive into integrating private equity into the fold. “Certainly, we went through the exercise -- as we should -- doing our due diligence, and it was very appropriate,” Yormark said.
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2 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
SEC spring meetings haven’t exactly been a headline factory in recent years, but Commissioner Greg Sankey had his share of things to say last week on the Florida Panhandle. Chief among the points the normally poignant Sankey made was touching on recent discourse around whether the CFP should take on a 4-4-3-3-1-1 or 5+11 model, as well as the SEC might play in shaping the future of the sport. “I seem to be the one who gets the ‘good of the game’ question more than others,” Sankey said.
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3 weeks ago | 
sportsbusinessjournal.com | Ben Portnoy
College football season is still 86 days away, but it’s never too early to start planning. The Big 12 announced early season selections for a slew of conference-controlled contests between Weeks 0 and 3, along with a handful of later season games on Thursday. The slate of 10 games that were revealed will see seven carried by Fox between Week 0 and Week 3, beginning with Fresno State at Kansas on Aug. 23. Iowa-Iowa State on Sept.
