Senator's letter to Big Ten presidents: Private equity 'unlikely to align' with academic goals

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Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sent a letter to Big Ten presidents Friday, warning that a move into private equity could have negative consequences, including impacting the schools' tax-exempt status.

“The primary goal of these companies is to make money for the firm, which is unlikely to align with the academic goals of your university or its obligations as a not-for-profit organization,” Cantwell said.

The Big Ten has been exploring a partnership with private equity firms, with reports saying it could be looking at a $2 billion investment that would involve placing the sale of its media rights and other assets under a new entity partially owned by the equity investors.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was short on specifics at the conference's basketball media days this week.

“Whether or not we need strategic investment to help us, we’ll determine,” he said. “It will be done by all 18 leaders. I think it’s no different than looking at the other buckets that we have to maximize resources. Just one other avenue that may or may not be available to us.”

Cantwell, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee whose state has a Big Ten school, said in her letter she had been told that not all regents and trustees in the conference had been fully briefed on the deal.

“It is unclear from my conversations with these regents and trustees whether the athletic-focused Conference has fully considered the potential impact of the deal on your university and its overall educational mission,” she wrote.

Her letter comes a day after the senator spoke at a Knight Commission seminar that looked into the changes occurring in college sports, which settled a long-running lawsuit that now allows schools to pay players for their name, image and likeness.

Cantwell spoke in favor of her recently introduced SAFE Act, which proposes rewriting a 1961 law that would make it legal for conferences to pool their TV rights. She was followed at the event by Texas Tech regent chair Cody Campbell, who is a proponent of changes to the law and who blasted the Big Ten idea of looking into private equity.

"The fact that we’re bringing private equity into something that is, in my view, owned by the American public in college sports, is outlandish,” Campbell said.

Campbell estimates pooling of TV rights could bring an additional $7 billion to schools — a figure he did not back with any data and that conference commissioners disagree with.

“I have never stated — publicly or privately — that pooling media rights would increase revenue, nor do I believe that it would,” the Southeastern Conference's Greg Sankey said.

Among the issues involved in pooling TV rights is that each conference has an assortment of deals with different expiration dates, which would make it hard to sync the deals and bring them under one umbrella.

Petitti acknowledged a private equity move for the Big Ten could create the same challenges.

“If we’re going to do something different, we’re going to respect everything we’ve set up in our current deals,” Petitti said. “There’s nothing being contemplated that would change anything in our current media relationships.”

One Michigan regent, Jordan Acker, recently posted on social media that “selling off Michigan’s precious public university assets would betray our responsibility to students and taxpayers.”

In her letter, Cantwell was blunt in outlining the stakes a private-equity investment could have.

“Your university’s media revenues currently are not taxed because they are considered 'substantially related to' your tax-exempt purpose,” she wrote. “However, when a private, for-profit investor holds a stake in those revenues it raises questions whether the revenue loses its connection to your institution’s educational purpose.”

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