Jay Williams Supports PE in College Sports: ‘I Would Like to Own 49% of Duke Basketball’

Former NBA player and ESPN analyst Jay Williams says he’s in favor of private equity entering college sports—and he wants a piece of the pie.

“One day, I would like to own 49% of Duke basketball,” Williams told Front Office Sports editor in chief Dan Roberts in an onstage interview.

Williams and Roberts were speaking at the Tuned In summit in New York on Tuesday.

“We’re seeing private equity enter the NFL. We already see Dyal and Blue Owl and the NBA,” said Williams, referring to the fund which has purchased stakes in multiple NBA teams. “I think you’re going to have a lot of these.” Williams is on the board at Shenkman Capital Management.

The private equity industry has been circling college sports for some time. Schools like Florida State and Howard have had exploratory conversations about selling stakes of their teams or athletic departments to private equity firms. In May, RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital announced the launch of a college sports arm, though they said at the time that they were not interested in purchasing ownership stakes in teams.

But so far, no private equity firm has struck a deal with an athletic department.

Williams acknowledged there could be downsides, as well as plenty of details to clarify. “Typically, I think from a PE perspective, they want that return in five to six years,” he said. But he added that if the media rights themselves for college teams are so lucrative, it might be an even better business decision to purchase a stake in a team directly.

“I saw the way we programmed our content around Zion Williamson,” he said, referring to ESPN coverage. “I saw the way we programmed our content around Trae Young. I saw the way we tried to do it for Bronny James until he got hurt. So you will see something like what—that value does for the program. To have economics in that is the future.

“I think that’s where a lot of these conversations are going.”

Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, of which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is an investor in Front Office Sports.