SBJ College: Learfield’s sale a sign of the times

What’s life without a little more chaos?

In some fun personal news this week, my wife and I adopted a dog. We’re so excited to welcome three-year-old lab mix Hopscotch, aka “Scotch.” (And our other dog, Charlie, is adjusting to older brotherhood).

It’s not every day one of the largest operators in college sports gets bought by a private equity firm. Tuesday was that day.

TPG is finalizing the purchase of Learfield, one of the most significant multimedia rights and technology companies in the industry. The acquisition, which sources told Sports Business Journal is expected to be valued somewhere between $1.8 and $2 billion, underscores the increasingly commercialized nature of college sports.

“We started hearing from a number of prospective investors about 18 months ago,” Learfield CEO/President Cole Gahagan told SBJ. “We made the decision that based on the convergence of two factors — the company doing really well and investor interest being really high — it was the right time to start having conversations, which we opened midway through last year and could not have landed with a better partner than TPG.”

That TPG is diving into sports shouldn’t come as a surprise. The firm owned a controlling stake in CAA before selling it in 2023. It also partnered with Masters champ Rory McIlroy last year through his investment firm, Symphony Ventures, to create TPG Sports.

More broadly, the firm’s entry into college sports marks a major moment in private equity’s recent circling of the enterprise.

While other firms have pursued school or conference-level deals, TPG has stated it’s not interested in investing in individual athletic programs or universities. It stresses Learfield is an avenue into a growth space (college sports), compared to an entrance into its client base.

For example, rather than investing directly into Michigan, Ohio State or Texas, TPG is putting its money into Learfield, whose business units can help tap into the thematic growth that’s occurring in the industry and allows the firm to play into that trend.

“We’ve looked at the business multiple times, and, for us, this time represents the most compelling period, when you think about the ongoing needs universities have to grow revenue and support student athletes,” TPG Partner Peter McGoohan told SBJ. “Learfield is very well positioned to help its university partners continue to grow.”

Learfield, of course, has had its share of owners. The current structure came about through a 2018 merger with IMG College, a company formed in 2007 via acquisitions involving Host Communications and The Collegiate Licensing Company. It also counted private equity as part of its previous ownership groups.

So, no, PE involvement in this particular part of college sports isn’t novel. The TPG purchase, however, feels notable given the firm’s ties to the larger sports world and the potential it has to expedite the growth of one of college athletics’ major players.

For as much prognosticating as there’s been around PE entering college sports, this feels like one of the more significant moves to date.

The good times are rolling at Big Ten HQ.

The conference just wrapped up their first men’s basketball title since 2000. With that, the Big Ten became the first league ever to win national championships in football and men’s and women’s basketball in the same academic year. Oh, and it has seen three different schools win the CFP title in as many years.

Pretty good, eh?

The Big Ten made more news Sunday when it hired Wisconsin AD Chris McIntosh as the conference’s first deputy commissioner for strategy.

The move feels logical. McIntosh had his detractors in Madison, and Luke Fickell’s seat might be about as hot as any football coach’s in America. Throw in that system president Jay Rothman was fired last week under wonky circumstances and UW Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin will become president of Columbia University in January and there’s a leadership vacuum above McIntosh’s head.

More interesting is what McIntosh will bring to Commissioner Tony Petitti’s staff. For all the flack he catches, Petitti has enjoyed staunch support from his athletic directors. McIntosh is among those supporters. He’s a big thinker with a commercial business background who is interested in the larger college sports ecosystem.

McIntosh gives Petitti another person to brainstorm with on his senior staff, along with someone who has sat in the AD chair and can help distill ideas for the rest of the league.

These days long-term planning feels like six months ahead, let alone six years. McIntosh escapes a turbulent situation in Madison, and Petitti gets a strong voice to aid his quests at the conference level.

Seems like a win-win for everyone.

The college basketball season didn’t end with a national title, as UConn AD David Benedict might’ve hoped, but the school’s positioning hasn’t been better in some time.

The Huskies are winners of two of the last four national championships, and their return to the Big East has been a boon for the conference and school.

Considering the fascinating place the Big East occupies in the college sports ecosystem — a basketball stalwart sans football — it puts a school like UConn in a unique situation.

I caught up with Benedict at the Men’s Final Four to talk about the league and UConn’s run of success amid a complex and increasingly pricey ecosystem.

Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

SBJ: The Big East has won four of the last nine men’s basketball titles. What’s your perception of what UConn has been able to do in elevating the conference and what the Big East has been able to accomplish in men’s basketball?

David Benedict: “Obviously, we feel really good about what we’re contributing to the league. There’s other good teams in the league, but we certainly feel good about the fact that they gave us an opportunity to come back. I think we’ve delivered amazing returns for them.

“As it relates more broadly, I mean, look, it’s a different environment. We have Power Four leagues that are 16 to 18 teams. We just have to continue to do a really good job scheduling, and you have to win the non-con[ference] matchups. As much of the debate about who gets in and who doesn’t, the data is the data at the end of the year. Was St. John’s better than a five-seed? Probably, but at the same time, you’ve got to win in the non-conference, too.”

SBJ: The Big East has a seat at the table in the NCAA’s new governance structure around men’s basketball. What has allowed the league to stay in those conversations as the voices in those rooms have been consolidated?

DB: “You said it — this is potentially a fifth opportunity to compete for a championship and win it. Those are facts that you can’t debate. To have a conference and have institutions having that much success, it’s reasonable to suggest that people should respect that for what it is.”

SBJ: For a school like UConn, what are the challenges of competing at the highest levels of men’s and women’s basketball, maintaining football, things like that? You obviously have a different challenge than most schools.

DB: “We’re trying to compete at a high level across the board. We have two hockey teams who are both in the NCAA tournament. We have other programs that are competing at a top 25-level. Football’s been back-to-back nine-win seasons. We’re competing financially, probably in the top 10, top five from a support standpoint [in Group of Six football], but ultimately, you have to be honest about what drives things.

“For us, right now, based on the current situation we’re in, men’s and women’s basketball are big financial drivers for us. There’s no secrets to that when you’re selling out and when you’re having success and you’re winning. You have people that want to get involved, whether it’s donors, whether it’s ticket holders, sponsors, new NIL deals. There is a momentum that you can build from success, and that is spilling over, I think, into lots of other areas.

SBJ: Do you think basketball is undervalued?

DB: “One hundred percent.”

SBJ: What about it do you feel is undervalued?

DB: “I can’t sit here and say like, ‘Hey, the TV deal should be X,’ but, look, just on our campus in what we’re seeing and feeling related to real corporate [deals] ... if you look at since the selection shows, the number of our student athletes that have been on national television deals and the money that’s associated with those things, that would say there’s a significant value.

“Obviously, viewership is up across the board. I think it may not be an undervalued conversation. It’s the distribution that’s associated with basketball, and the membership is undervalued. Our student athletes and basketball are not getting their fair share because 75% of what’s being generated from this tournament is being distributed in a different way than it is directly to the institutions or the conferences, like the CFP does.”

• SBJ debuted its College Football On-Field Logos Directory, as more than 60 schools have sold this key asset for sponsorship.
• SBJ’s Rachel Axon was on the ground in Phoenix for the Women’s Final Four to report on how the NCAA is making progress, but not reaching parity, in addressing inequities in men’s and women’s sports.
• College sports play a significant role Louisville’s plans for becoming a sports business pacesetter, my SBJ colleague David Broughton reports in this week’s magazine.
• The Southern Conference and CBS Sports expanded and extended their deal through the 2031-32 season, doubling the number of regular-season men’s basketball games to 10.