šŸ“” Pac-12 Conference reportedly exploring private equity partnership

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Wondering when they try to partner up with a provider.

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Want to buy a stake in the Pac-12 Conference? It’s exploring taking on private equity partners.

Want to own a piece of a major college football conference?

There may be one for sale shortly.

Pac-12 Conference leadership pitched university presidents and chancellors a strategic plan aimed at bailing out the struggling conference and helping it keep pace with its Power Five Conference peers.

The ā€œPac-12 NewCoā€ plan was introduced to the conference presidents and chancellors at their mid-November meeting and was subsequently discussed in a conference call in December, per sources. Private investors would own 10 percent equity in the newly formed entity in exchange for a $500 million investment.

A six-page document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive outlines the plan presented by conference commissioner Larry Scott to his bosses during the November meeting of the ā€œPac-12 CEO Group.ā€

The document outlines the conference’s current lagging media rights projections and introduces an ambitious plan that involves taking on a strategic private investor.

The Pac-12 members currently operate at a financial disadvantage to its peers. The Southeastern Conference, for example, distributed $11 million more than the Pac-12 to each of its members in the last fiscal year. The Big Ten’s new media rights deal will give each of its conference members more than $15 million in excess of what the Pac-12 will distribute to the universities it represents.

Under the ā€œPac-12 NewCoā€ plan, a cash infusion of $500 million would be available for immediate distribution to the Pac-12 members.

The conference’s broadcast rights, sponsorship rights, merchandising and all other commercial assets would be consolidated under the umbrella of ā€œPac-12 NewCo.ā€ The conference would retain 90 percent of the equity.

The strategic plan documents include a chart outlining the current and projected media-rights distributions. It reads, ā€œbased on the Pac-12’s current media rights deals and making conservative assumptions going forward, we estimate that a Capitalized NewCo could be valued at approximately $5 billion to $8.5 billion.ā€

The projections, however, include $36 million in annual revenue from DirecTV beginning in 2020 and a one-time payment in 2024 from ESPN in the amount of $347 million. Neither is certain. Also, the plan assumes FOX would renew its current broadcast contract with the Pac-12 in a 10-year deal worth more than $2 billion.

A four-part series that ran in The Oregonian in November outlined the disparity in expenses and distributions between the Pac-12 and its Power Five Conference peers. The Pac-12 is generating less revenue than others and its expenses are far higher.

The Big Ten’s successful sale of its Tier 1 media rights will put its distributions to members at more than $50 million each once it kicks in.

The SEC distributed $41 million to each member in the last fiscal year and has now hired Evolution Media and Creative Artists Agency to help negotiate its television deals, which expire in 2023.

ā€œMore than ever before, SEC fans have greater access to view Conference programming as a result of the SEC’s existing broadcast agreements and the development of new technology,ā€ SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in the release.

The Pac-12 current television rights contracts expire in 2024.

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