Podcast Alert: Preparing the College Sports Industry for the Arrival of Private Capital

Transcript

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Charles Rolston: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Navigating Sports Business Podcast. I’m Charles Rolston, VP of Consulting at Navigate, and joined once again by Navigate’s founder, AJ Maestas, to discuss what athletic departments should be doing right now to prepare for a wave of private capital investment across college sports. Now, before this conversation, we spoke directly with private capital investors who are actively thinking about college athletics and thinking about how to move forward. 

The skinny on those conversations: private capital interest in college athletics is growing, but PE isn’t buying teams or traditions. They’re buying predictable revenue, scalable audiences, and control over monetization. Today, we’re gonna talk a little bit about what athletic departments need to have in place assuming that future and not reacting to it. 

So the first question for you, AJ: what type of athletic departments are structurally attractive to private capital [00:01:00] investors right now? 

AJ Maestas: Think of it like a stock. It’s it’s not what you’re paying today, it’s what it’s worth later as an investor. I would say big brands that are under-monetized in good markets with low competition. 

That, that would be obvious though, right? I think the thing that might be a little less obvious, and I’m thinking a lot of our audience on this will be athletic directors and those administrators in this position making these considerations. I would say what might surprise some folks is governance and incentive structures. 

Private equity is known for being risky, and I think people have this sort of image of them levering up to amplify the returns, and yeah, that is something they do. But they are looking for certainty and stability, cost controls revenue certainty, tailwinds behind a whole industry. 

So I think what they see here is this arbitrage opportunity that we’ve talked about in a few of our podcasts recently, to repeat it yet again, to repeat it yet again, we think the average athletic department gets about fifty-seven [00:02:00] cents on the dollar out of the marketplace, as would a private sports business entity. 

But college athletics is not a private sports business entity, and we know all the reasons why it’s different. So what can you do to make yourself look more investable, right? To have, transparency, controls, consistency, reliable revenues, good governance, good controls. So yeah, I would say those are the things. Plenty of room for for cleanup there. 

Charles Rolston: And one thing that I would add to that is alignment across all parts of the institution. We’re talking an athletic director, a board, a university president, and any other key stakeholders who understand, what this commitment is going to mean for the institution’s mission and also the development of the athletic department. 

And ones that are ready to go and ready to take, large risks. We saw Utah do it in December. We’ve seen the Big Ten and the Big Twelve, mull over these conference-wide deals. But realistically, when it comes to an institution-specific scenario, you really need alignment across those three key areas of the [00:03:00] university. 

And I know that we use, capital and private equity pretty much interchangeably, but I want to ask you, what does it actually mean for an athletic department to be PE ready? 

AJ Maestas: I appreciate that question, and I appreciate you calling out the stakeholders. That, that bears repeating, as compared to a private sport entity, right? 

Student, staff, faculty, alumni fans, politicians that could be statewide, that could be federal. Yeah, it’s not easy to be private equity ready. It really worries me actually because I think people are taking meetings. There’s these brokers that are running around trying to introduce private equity or get their foot in the door. 

They see this great arbitrage opportunity that we just described. And, a lot of these brokers, they get paid basically a hundred basis points, call it one percent of the money you’re going to take. But they’re not going to be around to help you deploy that capital or to be responsible for how it’s used. 

So I do think there’s a lot to do before you start taking meetings to really understand what your needs are, what your wants are, what you’re going to do with that. Because it could be private equity, it could be debt. I just had a chat with Apollo. They’re one of the [00:04:00] giants, and they’re getting into, especially on the debt side sports investments. 

And they essentially, the thesis is sports are under-levered. And it’s true. If you look at it compared to private business, zero debt or very low debt. And that doesn’t provide a lot of liquidity opportunities. You can see, a bunch of things, that, that creates opportunity-wise. 

So we’re not just talking private equity, debt, bunch of different structures. But yeah, so what do you have to do to be private equity ready? You got to have a business plan. You have to know how you’re going to deploy that capital. And this is the number one thing that concerns me far and away. One of my fears of the Big Ten deal you just referenced was w-we talked to many of those universities, and a lot of them are gonna use a lot or most of that money to cover for shortfall. 

That’s not a positive ROI investment. You’re just covering, for losses, right? And the changing landscape. Now, don’t get me wrong, the way the Big Ten Conference was gonna use it to create a new revenue-generating entity, something of value, there’s something there. That’s something I would invest in. 

But yeah, to be private equity ready, number one, how are you gonna deploy that capital in positive ROI investments? What are you gonna [00:05:00] do with it? That takes a business plan. You gotta clear, you gotta clear that pathway. I took a shot at some of these brokers, but I’d say good counsel. 

I can even to this day see some of the pain in your eyes on one transaction that you worked on where, I think it’s fair to say that you were having to help, bankers and consultants and people who don’t live in this ecosystem, this world of college athletics every day, understand what’s predictable, reliable. 

What can you collateralize against, an investment, things like that. So there’s a lot. It’s complex, the things that make this such a difficult industry niche to succeed in and why we have that arbitrage opportunity. Yeah, you have to align that with a world that’s not used to that, and that’s there’s a lot. 

I have to say something. The popular image of private equity is they buy something, they lever it up, they dividend themselves so they’re safe and secure, and then they, strip it away and sell it for the parts or something. The truth is that private equity has been an unbelievable accelerant in business. 

It’s an asset class that has performed all [00:06:00] others, even risk-adjusted, the last twenty years, let’s say. Now, I think that might be coming to an end. They’re having a hard time raising money these days. Exits have really slowed. But I share this to say that it’s not like some sort of evil, scary thing. 

It has accelerated businesses and accelerated their success. It’s just there’s a lot to get in order because they do these transactions every day. They are less risky than you think, and they are experts at de-risking their situation, but that’s not yours. So yeah, there, there’s a lot to be concerned about before you take a check. 

Charles Rolston: I’m very confident that the pressures of taking private capital are going to innovate the ecosystem, which I think is a super positive thing. What I think college athletics has suffered from in the past is a mentality to keep up with the Joneses. You see a neighbor get a shiny new building, and you basically say, “Hey, Populous,” or some other architect, we wanna do the exact same thing.” 

And without a strategy in place that fits your particular environment, your fan base, your donor base, your [00:07:00] stakeholders, that is not the right way to optimize these types of situations that really come around, once every twenty or thirty years. And I think it’s so important to have that business plan ready and to basically, have a mentality that you are going to be taking this type of capital, have that readiness, have that preparedness to be able to take your department into the next generation of innovation, regardless of whether you’re taking in a capital injection or not. 

I think that type of exercise is something that is gonna benefit collegiate athletic departments across the country, regardless of whether they actually secure a deal or not. 

AJ Maestas: Yeah. There’s gonna be mistakes, right? To your point there’s gonna be this sort of garn- governance friction. 

There’s going to be these challenges that arise. Think about how quick the landscape of college athletics is changing right now. Every day, there’s a new potential direction, and optionality is so important as you’re designing a solution. Think about basketball independence, football independence. 

Think of changes to the NCAA. Imagine super conference scenarios. [00:08:00] Imagine realignment. Th-this whole NIL landscape and what could be federal, sort of imagine some of this federal law that could come through or collective bargaining in the future. If a private equity fund, let’s say, put money against your multimedia rights, your sponsorship rights and they’re betting on that growth, and then all of a sudden these NIL rules or tricks, let’s call them, come about, and you’re doing everything you can to reallocate legitimate multimedia rights sponsorship dollars toward NIL so that you can compete with your football roster. 

That’s directly at odds w-with what was, collateralized or bet against by that private equity fund, and you’ve got a problem . Yeah, I think there’s a lot of looking in the crystal ball and a lot of consideration that goes into flexibility. So I don’t want to make it seem riskless. 

I appreciate you saying that stuff, Charles, cause yeah you have to anticipate a lot of things in a highly dynamic world and a world where a regulatory environment that’s gonna change. I don’t know if we all know where it’s going, but I think it’s fair to say it’s gonna [00:09:00] change, right? 

Charles Rolston: Absolutely. And a really interesting thing that I’ve been thinking about, we’ve been talking to athletic directors consistently on a weekly basis over the past several years on this topic alone. 

And I think, one of the reactions that we get, rather that it’s explicit or it’s implied, is that, “If my team was just winning more games, it would fix all of our problems.” And we see it with Indiana over the last couple years, Miami with their great run to the national championship so far this year. 

But, does that actually fix all the problems long term? The real question is winning games insufficient on its own to attract private investment? And what are they gonna wanna see happen on a reliant year-over-year basis in order to ensure that those revenues actually stabilize and they’re not just one-year blips? 

AJ Maestas: Obviously it’s highly correlated. But no it’s not enough. Winning increases exposure and demand, but that only matters if you turn that into revenue. So are you ready to monetize it? And and this is something that, we work so often on in the pro world, [00:10:00] and they’re good at it, right? 

They are ready to win, and they can sense it coming, and they can see the changes, in their roster and the draft and what have you, and they get ready for increased demand. But in college athletics I feel like we might be chasing it from time to time. My favorite example is the Cowboys. 

They are the most profitable sports team in the world. They’re the most valuable sports team in the world. They haven’t won a Super Bowl in 30 years. It is certainly not perfectly correlated, even though it’s highly correlated. 

Charles Rolston: Yeah. You used the Cowboys example. I used my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. 

The on-ice performance leaves a lot to be desired every single year, but you can’t argue with the fact that they’re one of the most well-run organizations in professional hockey right now, filling the stadium up consistently. The viewership that they get across the country is exceptional, and everywhere that they go, you’ll see Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys. 

So that’s right. Being in the position where you’re able to capitalize on these inflection points where, it’s a one-year wonder for your department. We see that happen so much more often with the way that the transfer portal is [00:11:00] playing out over, over these past couple years, is that you can really change the perception of your organization your program, your team in one season. 

And bringing in a new coach that’s able to recruit at the top level can certainly change the way that, you perform within your conference and into the CFP. But it’s really making these departments be a lot more, have to be a lot more adaptable and nimble to be able to take advantage of these types of situations. 

Let me ask you this, AJ. You’re on the other side. We’re doing a hypothetical here. You’re on the upper s- other side. You’re working for a private capital fund, and you are giving a blank check, essentially. Or not blank. Let’s call it a max of $500 million to a university. Where would you want to see those funds deployed first in order to achieve the highest ROI within an athletic department? 

AJ Maestas: Just have to call out that when talking about your beloved Maple Leafs you didn’t mention how long it’s been since they won a Stanley Cup. The playoff drought, but I’ll let it slide. 

Charles Rolston: [00:12:00] Before I was born. I’ll let it slide. So I only know misery. 

AJ Maestas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But at least we’ve done work with those guys. And to compliment them monetization depends on people and incentives and culture and smart pricing and data and platforms and process. There, there’s a lot to it, and you can be great in business without the on-ice product in this example being great. It’s actually something I was talking with a group in Australia last year, and it was one of the things they criticized about American sports business, that maybe we don’t emphasize what’s happening on the field enough. 

But yeah. How would I invest it? How would we invest it? I appreciate the question because this is something, a presentation we’re giving all the time to, boards and athletic directors and, I wanna know. I’d wanna know too. So just to quantify this for everybody, when I say I’m gonna share some multiples of ROI or cash-on-cash investment- I’ll start with like revenue infrastructure. 

CRM, ticketing, data, things along these lines can have a thirteen to twenty x return. So by that I mean you’re putting in a hundred thousand [00:13:00] dollars into some bolt-on products under your CRM system, and it yields an incremental one point three to two million in, let’s call it contribution margin or profit contribution. 

So pretty obvious easy return. Sales tech, sales support, sales infrastructure premium inventory. Everybody knows this is a place to find more money, but what is it? It’s probably three to four x. Sometimes you’re ripping out seats to create space. Sometimes it’s just unused space in your concourse or something. 

Or, I don’t know, bunker suites or sideline seats, where you’re actually not having to do a lot of CapEx spending. Revenue-generating staff, this is an obvious one. Ticket salespeople, we typically see about three x. Fundraisers about four x changes to comp structure about five x. 

By that I mean variable comp or incentives. In college athletics, we’re seeing a very small percent of those revenue generators’ income tied to sales and sales outcomes, whereas in the pro world, it’s a very large percent. Let’s see, what else we got? There’s the contract stuff we do. We work on a lot of multimedia rights deals. 

It can be a ten to twenty [00:14:00] x in the situations we’re working with someone, and we’re comparing and contrasting that to somebody who just renews on their own or auto renews or doesn’t go to a competitive process in the open market. Yeah think about long-term fixed contracts attached to revenue. 

Licensing would be included in there as well. Think of your apparel deal. And then there’s some new media tech stuff, direct-to-consumer. I hate to put a number on this, but you can be sure that the future of your media dollars, which is always going to be a top three revenue bucket for college athletics, is going to be tied to consumers demanding your product and being willing to subscribe to it. 

So I love things like what Clemson did with, the direct-to-consumer subscription-based model to cut out the middleman, start to actually get to know your customer, start to develop that muscle, to understand how to be a marketer like that. There’s going to be tech, NIL platforms, digital assets, content, stuff like that. 

A lot of that software stuff and some of that tech and some new media stuff, typically, two x or less. And then long-term, there’s some big stuff. Think of the mixed-use real estate development that, we’ve talked about before. I [00:15:00] think everyone’s taking a look at that now. But you used to do, facilities to keep up with the Joneses or cause the coach wanted it for a recruiting advantage. 

Now there’s the potential to do the whole development around a stadium, around an arena. Those projects a pref rate for investors or a sponsor of ten percent is something you could pretty much expect right now in this climate. An IRR of maybe fifteen percent. It was pretty routinely twenty-five percent over the last fifteen years, but I wouldn’t want to set that expectation going forward in the future. 

But keep in mind, even though those percents might not sound big these are billion, two billion, three billion dollar projects. Yeah. There’s a there. Those are off the top of my head real quick, but those are typical things we discuss. But yeah no shortage of places to deploy the capital where there’s a quick positive return on investment. 

Charles Rolston: And realistically, you’re on the other side, and you’re the head of the athletic department. A lot of those things that you mentioned, they don’t cost five hundred million dollars in order to bring into action, right? These things right now, setting up a new structure for-profit entity by holding the brand and entertainment, entity under a new [00:16:00] umbrella that can be more nimble can set aside incentive-based compensation structures for their fundraisers and their ticket sellers. 

Adding new members to the team and being as sophisticated as possible on revenue in- infrastructure around ticketing, CRM, and data. These are things that are table stakes at a pro sports organization and realistically are not going to take a significant amount of funding in order to really get the ball rolling. 

I understand that this capital will obviously accelerate your ability to pull the trigger on a lot of these things, but don’t you think that these things are something that, that should be happening or should have been happening for the past several years within every collegiate athletic department? 

AJ Maestas: Yeah. Yes, but then here’s my fear in sounding like we’re critical. Why isn’t it happening? These people aren’t stupid, right? These are hardworking people who know this, but that is the reality of the red tape. They are all operating in the red, so where does that incremental dollar come from, right? 

Your investor then is asking for what additional subsidy from campus, it’s not money’s fungible in the C-suite, so it’s not [00:17:00] like there’s a bunch of extra cash running around there where… but yeah, a lot of the things you just described, Charles, are self-liquidating within twelve months. 

You don’t employ a ticket salesperson that’s unprofitable for eighteen months. It’s v- there’s some very simple, clear metrics you could be watching and, of course, you ramp up in renewal seasons, right? Or new sales seasons. A lot of what you said, yeah, within one budget cycle, no doubt. 

And yeah, I believe that. I believe that. Let’s talk about FOMO. For the people that don’t invest, for the people who don’t get on board o-onto this changing landscape, what’s their risk? If people aren’t taking money, are they gonna get left behind, or might they be grateful that they waited? 

Charles Rolston: The reality is you don’t have to take the capital for the capital to affect you. I think we’ll see it at the conference level first. A perfect example is, let’s look at analysis twelve months from now and what happens with Utah. I don’t necessarily think that there will be all of a sudden Utah will be a top five team nationally and run away with the Big 12 [00:18:00] championship. 

It’s gonna be obviously much more challenging to convert the money that they get from Otro Capital into something that is actually able to be realized on the field. I think what you will see is you’ll see more of a structural competitive gap widening between Utah and the rest of the Big 12. 

I I think you’ll see, some main things being pricing power and monetization efficiency becoming a real competitive advantage for Utah, and also just preparedness and operational efficiency by having the backing of some really smart people at Otro who’ve worked with a bunch of different professional sports organizations and know how to run a sports team effectively. 

Let me give you an example. I think there’s gonna be Utah, let’s say they move towards upgrading their premium seating with a lot of strategy behi-behind how to capitalize, how to price it, and how to monetize that and actually turn it into a long-term sustainable revenue stream. 

I think you’ll get boards and donors at these other schools within the [00:19:00] Big 12 saying, “Hey, I want that. They look like they’ve been doing really well with that financially. I see it from my colleagues and peers and friends who go to the stadium and have such an amazing experience. 

We want that on our campus.” And I think you’ll see the schools, being reactionary rather than proactive and essentially just mimicking exactly what that, that campus does. And what does that lead to? That, without any type of pricing strategy, no differentiated experience, no operational readiness to sell and service that new premium area, you’re essentially already five years behind because, you’re you haven’t put in that time to understand what do my fans, my donors, my stakeholders want? 

When was the last time we repriced our premium ticketing opportunities and when would be an effective time to try to capitalize that? How can we, mimic the dynamic ticket pricing that we see at the pro sports level to ensure that maybe when we have a worse opponent, we’re still getting the most effective monetized ticket revenue for that particular week Saturday on the field? 

These are [00:20:00] things that without any type of strategy behind it, I think you’ll see a lot of money being put into, to places where five years after they’ll say, we probably should have done that differently, and we probably should have put a better strategy behind it rather than just trying to, follow the status quo that was done from a university who is well-capitalized.” But what do you think? 

AJ Maestas: Yeah, it’s hard for me to see a first-mover advantage, and this is maybe why everyone’s waiting to see what others do because the money’s there. A lot of people have done their due diligence and are ready to pull the trigger. And it’s not like there aren’t other ways to invest. 

Using the Utah example, they have competition. Kansas is not messing around, right? They are trying to transform the athletic department and in particular, elevate football. Arizona State’s not messing around. They’re writing very big checks to compete at a level that they haven’t com- competed at in 40 plus years if ever. 

They might be as well-funded and supported as they ever have. Baylor’s not messing around. I don’t have to tell the Texas Tech story. I think everybody knows that. Yeah, they’re not alone there i- in the Big [00:21:00] 12, and so it’s not like it’s happening in isolation and no one else is making any other effort to be better or grow. 

But yeah I think there will be lessons learned, and it’s a rapidly changing environment. So I don’t wanna discourage people from doing it because I think that, invested wisely, this can be a very smart move. Let me take you back to the new schools and people rising up and all these sort of changes. 

You know this better than I do. How quickly can brand perception change? How quickly can enterprise value change? Yeah what’s the real possibility here? Go beyond the Utah example. What can someone do to really change their trajectory financially in college athletics, and how fast? 

Charles Rolston: We can see it happening in real time. Market perception can shift in a single season. We saw it with Colorado, where they became, a top 10 nationally viewed program pretty much out of nowhere. We saw it with Indiana over the past two years with what Coach Signetti has done to turn that program around from literally being a bottom Power Five football program into, essentially one of the the top [00:22:00] candidates for the CFP, last year and this year. 

So I, I think these, the, these things can happen literally at the flip of a switch. I think the monetization windows where the organizations and the departments can really take advantage of this lightning in a bottle opportunity is something that’s also short and easy to miss. I think, the biggest thing that we’re looking at here is take Indiana, for example. 

How many casuals do you think have come out of the woodwork, started wearing their IU gear, chant, chanting at bars every Saturday, being so excited about the momentum of their collegiate football team but What happens if that performance goes away next season? Are there the structures, are there the platforms in place to turn all of those casuals into annual fund contributors, into donors into people who are going to pay for DTC content because they want to know more about the coach, they want to know more about the team, what happens, outside of the 60 minutes that happen on, on, on Saturday [00:23:00] afternoons? 

If this is something that you don’t have in place before that lightning in the bottle opportunity, it’s pretty easy to miss, and those people would be happy to just go away and utilizing their Saturdays to go to pumpkin farms or whatever else people do in Indiana. 

AJ Maestas: Pumpkin farms. Wait, are you taking shots at Indiana? Did I interrupt an insult? By the way, cu- kudos to Indiana fans. Maybe it was the camera angle. You don’t know which side the the tickets were allocated, and maybe they were so optimistic they were going to make the Final Four that they had pre-purchased their tickets. 

But on TV, that Oregon game, that stadium appeared to be 80% red. That was incredible, and it’s anecdotal, but personally, this year, I received more requests for college football championship game tickets. By the way, it’s not how ticketing works anymore, folks. The, it’s all in the secondary market at this point. 

But 10 times the amount of requests for Indiana fans trying to get tickets than at any point in history for someone being the CP championship game. I don’t even know Indiana people. I have a very small handful of friends that went to [00:24:00] Indiana. Boy, their fans have turned it on. I just couldn’t help but mention that. It’s pretty incredible. 

Charles Rolston: Let’s get to prediction time. You referenced this earlier about two questions ago, where you talked about, there not really being a first-mover advantage. There’s probably going to be a few mistakes and kinks that need to be worked out, for the schools that do take this capital early. 

What do you think is the most common mistake that athletic departments are going to make as PE private capital enters the space? 

AJ Maestas: It’s how you deploy it, how you spend the money, number one. That’s my number one fear. My number two is optionality and flexibility. This is a rapidly changing environment. 

Are you anticipating, your way in and out of this and what have you? Third is around incentives. I would categorize it as, governance and seeing some governance friction, some misalignment, because typically when private equity invests in an entrepreneur or a small business or a private business, they’re dealing with a professional leadership team with one goal and one mission, which is to serve the best interest of shareholders. 

And [00:25:00] as we discussed earlier, athletic directors, university presidents, they are dealing with a far more complex and diverse set of stakeholders and influencers. Yeah. How about you? Same question. 

Charles Rolston: I agree with you. Worded a different way I think it comes down to what problem are we actually solving? 

I would hate to see that, 12 months from now, 24 months from now, we see a few more of these deals, and essentially the money has just go- went to, trying to stop the gaps that have been leading to deficits within collegiate athletic departments. I would hate to see it go to increasing expenses. 

You talked about collegiate athletics having a revenue problem, monetizing their platforms at fifty-seven cents on the dollar. I think that even more so they have a expense problem. I would hate to see just further injection of capital being put into the ecosystem and then that ultimately being just transferred into the pockets of these head coaches, and we see an inflation of of these expenses of [00:26:00] stadium redevelopments and coach salaries and NIL just be even more, more exorbitant across the board. 

I think the first thing that private capital, private equity, the firms who are gonna try to get a really strong understanding of how these funds are gonna be used are gonna want to do is to make the operation that is currently in place, even more efficient than it was before. 

And that is making some hard decisions by cutting costs, cutting expenses across the board, and maybe even cutting programs. But again, these types of funds don’t get into this business, just based off of charity. It is a business. They wanna see a return. They wanna see a profit. 

And I think just, being able to have that plan in place, regardless of whether you’ve started these conversations or not, I think is going to be beneficial because it’s gonna show up in your valuation. If you’re on the other side of the table and you’re looking at an athletic department that is trying to take out some type of loan or sell an equity piece, if there is no sophisticated plan for [00:27:00] how to use the funds, that is going to be discounted in the cost of the valuation that they’re putting on your athletic department. 

So I think, it is so important for athletic departments to really get this organized, put a plan in place, put a strategy behind it, say, “If we had a hundred million extra dollars, what would we put it towards? Where would we put it towards first in order to make the highest ROI?” And regardless of whether you’re taking that capital or not, I think that is going to serve your business, your organization, and the institution, better for the future in, in, in creating those sustainable revenues that can last more than just a one-year season blip. 

AJ Maestas: I appreciate you talking about some of the ugly stuff a-and the difficult stuff like workforce reduction, right? Or whatever, or cutting sports because it has to be discussed. That is the reality of the direction where the system’s going. Without some sort of controls or cross-subsidy or some changes to the rules, the economics, something has to give and on headcount, and this is a terrible thing to [00:28:00] discuss but it’s just a reality. 

When we look at a department in athletics, we see a much higher ratio of administrators to revenue generators than you find in the pro sports business world. It makes sense. They’re sponsoring 20 plus sports and dealing with, hundreds and hundreds of more athletes than a pro organization is dealing with. 

But, when it comes down to economics, you’d say, “Okay, which one of these jobs is essential? Who pays for themselves? Who’s generating positive return on investment?” So there’s some really tough decisions that athletics are going to face in the next few years unless something magical comes along and saves us. 

Charles Rolston: I think we got to give kudos to Utah. Thankfully the story is no longer when will private capital and private equity enter the space of collegiate athletics. We can stop just drumming up that headline every week and we can start talking about, the inevitable future and how athletic departments can really be prepared for the environment that this creates. 

So if you made it this far, thank you all for listening to another episode of [00:29:00] Navigating Sports Business. I’m Charles Rolston joined by AJ Maestas. If you have any questions or comments for us, please feel free to reach out. My email is Charles@NVGT.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn or on NVGT.com. 

And yeah, please reach out. We would love to have candid conversations with people about this particular topic and we will see you next time.