Private Equity looking at the Big Ten | Rich Rod bans TikTok dancing

Get up to speed with latest news impacting the sports business landscape in Chicago and beyond. 🗞️ 

Private equity is circling the Big Ten It's a new day and age in college sports, even for blue bloods like the Big Ten. As the biggest conference and oldest, it wouldn’t be surprising for the Big Ten to move slowly and be wary when presented with something new. It would be like trying to get your dad to jam to “They Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar. But the Rosemont-based Big Ten is doing the opposite. It’s entering discussions with private equity investors through investment bank Evercore. The Big Ten becomes one of the first college conferences to openly discuss accepting private equity. It makes sense for the Big Ten for multiple reasons. For starters, colleges are mirroring pro teams more and more, so they might as well field investors who can inject some much-needed cash into their operations. Another consideration is the expectation of rising expenses. The House vs. NCAA settlement could require schools to pay former collegiate athletes $22 million per year and more for 10 years. This is a huge added expense many colleges can’t afford and could look to private equity as a solution. Check out the full breakdown of the Big Ten’s private equity considerations here.

TechNexus Adds top sports tech companies Chicago-based TechNexus is calling for more investments by the sports industry into tech startups. The venture capital firm established in 2007 created a Sports Tech Market Map in this post featuring dozens of innovative tech startups. In the map, TechNexus divided the startups into several categories, including wearables, fan equipment, and analytics. It gave short descriptions of some of the most cutting-edge ideas, like Fitbod — a connected fitness, AI-powered app that tailors workout plans individually. It also automatically adjusts exercises, sets, and reps to avoid plateaus while improving efficiency. TechNexus isn’t just spewing out the information from the sidelines; they practice what they preach. It’s invested in tech startups like ANGLR, Fitbod, and Perch, all businesses involved in optimizing tech in sports-related arenas. Read more from their blog post detailing some of the tech startups on their radar.

USC’s JuJu Watkins becomes first women’s college athlete to sign exclusive deal with Fanatics If you haven’t heard of JuJu Watkins yet, prepare yourself to hear and see her everywhere. The USC women’s hoops star became the first woman to sign an exclusive deal with Fanatics. Fanatics says the deal will follow her into the WNBA, a move seen to challenge rival Panini, who holds exclusive trading card licensing for the WNBA. The agreement will include autographed memorabilia, game-worn items, and of course, trading cards. Watkins splashed onto the scene in style last year, averaging 27.1 points per game on her way to winning Freshman of the Year. She’s secured over 20 NIL deals so far, signing her first deal with Nike in October 2022 while still in high school. I'm sure her parents started asking her for lunch money after that instead of the other way around. The Athletic covers other details of the Fanatics deal, including who has signed a similar one on the men’s side.

Fanatics, MLB open retail outlet at Tokyo Dome The MLB and Fanatics are capitalizing on a growing fanbase in the Far East. The two entities collaborated to open a huge MLB Ballpark Store at the Tokyo Dome before the Cubs took on the Dodgers last week. At 31,000 sqft or close to ¾ of an acre, it featured over 300 products on sale. MLB projected around 100,000 fans to visit the outlet over the course of five days. Among the available merch was the limited edition MLB Tokyo Series jerseys. These were specially made with a Tokyo Series patch designed by renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. The apparel was available exclusively through the Fanatics app, but very briefly. It drew over 100,000 downloads, selling out the entire collection within an hour. Sorry to the Cubs fans, who not only saw the team get swept on the other side of the globe, but don’t have the ability to get any exclusive merch from the historic series. More details on the Fanatics, MLB collaboration can be found here.

WVU Coach Bans TikTok Dancing, Raising Questions About Employee Status TikTok and NIL collide in this news story. The new West Virginia coach, Rich Rodriguez, is caught between two worlds of trying to establish a new football culture for the recently struggling program. But in the NIL era, setting rules for collegiate athletes can take on a new dimension that wasn’t the case before. Rodriguez wants to ban players from dancing on TikTok, saying it “ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.” Legal experts say the move is outside the normal realm of the types of rules a coach can establish. By trying to establish these TikTok rules, it could be argued the athletes are employees, and they have been trying to obtain this status in court. It’s all part of the murky, gray area that collegiate athletes have always existed under the intense spotlight of NIL-related lawsuits. You can feel for an old-school coach like Rodrigues, who played football for WVU in the 80s and coached there in the early to mid-2000s. Can you really blame him for wanting his team to go viral for its play on the field instead of perfecting the latest TikTok dance? Front Office Sports explores the legal implications of the rule and some funny outtakes on the matter by Coach Rodriguez.

NCAA Selection Committee Chair Earned $68K From UNC Berth If you’ve ever played some card game where you’re on a team with a family member or friend, you make sure you “play fair” while securing the win. Even if the other team accuses you of cheating, you aggressively deny it. I'm not saying that’s what UNC’s athletic director did to earn his college a birth in the NCAA tournament, but it does seem fishy. West Virginia, who was on the outside of looking in while UNC was selected, feels the same way. Bubba Cunningham is UNC’s AD and is also part of the basketball committee that selects the field of 68 teams. He’s been in that position longer than he’s been an AD, but it’s still pretty suspect. UNC was on the bubble, and after conference title games, experts picked them to be in West Virginia’s position. But miraculously, UNC was the last team selected. Cunningham was rewarded $68,000 as the AD for the team making it to March Madness. West Virginia is threatening legal action for their exclusion, and I can’t say I blame them. These are the full details of the fiasco surrounding UNC’s AD.