Last week, the Big 12 confirmed it is in advanced talks with Collegiate Athletic Solutions, a co-investment platform involving RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital, to offer up to $500 million worth of investments in the conference and Big 12 schools.
Front Office Sports has learned details that the Big 12 is considering as part of ongoing talks between the league and CAS that haven’t been previously reported.
The details provide a window into the types of transactions under the surface between the conference and the firms. At this point, the conference has voted to proceed to drafting long-form agreements, sources said.
RedBird Capital is a New York–based private-equity firm; Weatherford Capital is a private investment firm with offices in Tampa, Fla., and Dallas, cofounded by former FSU quarterback Drew Weatherford. (Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, in which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is the primary investor in Front Office Sports.)
Last week, FOS and others reported the deal would include a $25 million investment in Big 12 conference assets (an entity called Big 12 Properties), and offer up to about $30 million in cash to Big 12 schools. No school would be required to take the money, however. In total, the infusion of capital could be about $500 million for schools and the conference. The deal would also offer investment expertise and assistance with identifying and securing additional revenue streams at the conference level, and assistance available at the school level as well.
In exchange, CAS would earn a percentage of conference revenue, but only if it reaches a certain threshold, two sources with direct knowledge of the deal told FOS. If the conference does well, CAS could earn 10% or more, with the amount CAS can earn capped at 15%. One source described it as a deal that looked more like revenue-sharing than private credit.
Schools that take the $30 million investment would not have to pay back the investment plus interest to CAS, sources said. Instead, they would get the money upfront, and CAS would withhold a percentage of the conference’s distributions that schools receive on the back end. (However, those withholdings could be paid for with the extra revenue created by the conference-level partnership.)
In addition, CAS would earn a 10% commission for any partnerships, sponsorship deals, or other revenue-generating agreements it facilitates for the Big 12, sources said. CAS would be able to take an equity stake in new joint ventures that the conference and the firm come up with. Sources also confirmed the potential for a $2.5 million annual retainer fee paid by the Big 12 conference to CAS through 2031.
Several sources described the concept of the retainer fee and the commission fee as industry standard for these types of deals, when firms come in to help companies source revenue.
In addition to the cash infusion and business partnership advisory, another benefit would be exclusivity. CAS would not be able to offer this sort of deal to any other power conference leagues if the partnership is struck, sources said.
Restructuring the Deal
Sources also revealed more details about the timeline of the proposal.
Reports regarding the Big 12’s consideration of deals with private-equity firms stretch back to the summer of 2024. But this past May, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told FOS that the conference was “not ready” to dive into talks, suggesting they had been halted.
What changed between then and now was equity, according to one source. Earlier versions of the proposal had involved offering some kind of equity stake in the conference and/or schools, the source said, which seemed to be a nonstarter for some schools. But this fall, the conference and the firms put together a new proposal that didn’t require the Big 12 or any schools to give up equity stakes in subsidiaries of their athletic department assets. The current proposal was only shared with athletic directors last week, though conference and university officials have been working on it for months, another source said.
RedBird Capital Partners declined to comment. A Big 12 representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
