College sports has been a major business for decades. The largest programs fill stadiums with more than 100,000 fans, attract national television audiences, generate significant sponsorship revenue, and operate some of the most recognizable sports brands in the United States. What is changing today is not necessarily the value of these programs, but the structure of the industry around them.

NIL has created a new commercial market around athletes, while the transfer portal has changed how talent moves between programs. Conference realignment has become increasingly influenced by media rights and revenue, and the House settlement has opened the door for schools to directly share revenue with athletes. As these changes continue, athletic departments are being asked to manage increasingly complex businesses involving sponsorships, ticketing, licensing, hospitality, media, facilities, athlete compensation, and capital allocation.

This continued professionalization creates an interesting opportunity for outside investors, but college sports has one major structural difference from most professional leagues. You cannot simply buy the Texas Longhorns. A university athletic department is not structured like an NFL, NBA, or European football club where an investor can purchase a minority stake in the underlying team.

That does not necessarily make college sports uninvestable. Instead, investors need to find different ways to gain exposure to the industry and participate in the revenue being generated around these programs. As more institutional capital begins entering college athletics, five strategies are beginning to stand out.

Before looking at how investors can enter college sports, it is worth understanding the scale of the market. Here are a few metrics that show just how large the industry has become:

These numbers help explain why institutional capital is becoming increasingly interested in college sports. The industry already has the brands, audiences, corporate demand, and consumer spending. The opportunity is figuring out how to better monetize those assets and how outside investors can participate in that growth.

Structured capital is probably the most straightforward way for outside investors to enter college sports because the strategy itself is not particularly different from financing businesses in other industries. A university, conference, or related organization needs capital, and a bank, private credit fund, or institutional investor provides that capital in exchange for interest, fees, and eventual repayment.

What makes this increasingly relevant to college sports is the amount of new spending athletic departments are facing. Schools are now dealing with athlete revenue sharing while continuing to invest heavily in facilities, recruiting, technology, coaching, and other areas necessary to remain competitive. As expenses increase, outside financing can provide schools with capital without requiring them to give up ownership or permanently transfer valuable commercial rights.

One example is Collegiate Athletic Solutions, a partnership between RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital. In 2026, CAS entered into a partnership with the Big 12 that included access to capital for member schools alongside broader commercial support. The financing side of that relationship is relatively conventional. Capital is provided to an organization with the expectation that the borrower will generate enough cash flow to repay it while providing the investor with an appropriate return.

For that reason, structured capital is probably the least sports-specific strategy on this list. The investor is still underwriting the financial strength of a sports organization, but the actual investment structure is something banks and private credit firms already use across almost every major industry. The strategies become more interesting when outside capital begins participating more directly in the additional revenue it helps create.

Infrastructure investment takes that idea one step further by directing capital toward assets that can potentially increase the earning power of an athletic program. College athletics controls billions of dollars worth of stadiums, arenas, training facilities, hospitality areas, and surrounding real estate, many of which can be improved or redeveloped to create additional revenue.

A stadium renovation, for example, does not necessarily need to focus on simply adding more seats. Capital can be used to build premium clubs, suites, hospitality areas, restaurants, sponsorship inventory, and other spaces that allow the athletic department to generate more revenue from the audience it already has. In that case, the investment is being made with the expectation that improvements to the physical asset will create enough additional cash flow to justify the capital being deployed.

In 2025, Elevate launched a $500 million Collegiate Investment Initiative focused on opportunities including venue modernization, premium seating, digital infrastructure, multimedia rights, and broader improvements to the fan experience. These types of investments can take different forms depending on the university and project, but outside investors do not necessarily need to permanently own the underlying stadium or arena to participate in the economics.

The University of Texas' Moody Center provides one example of how that can work. The arena was developed through a public-private structure where the private partner financed and developed the project while receiving operating and commercial rights connected to the venue. The university ultimately receives the facility, while the private side has the opportunity to generate returns through the commercial activity surrounding it.

This is what makes infrastructure different from simply lending money to an athletic department. The investor is not only asking whether the university can repay the capital. The investor is also evaluating whether premium seating, hospitality, events, sponsorships, concessions, and other commercial opportunities can increase the revenue generated by the asset itself.

Commercial joint ventures may offer one of the most interesting solutions to the ownership problem in college sports. If outside investors cannot own part of the athletic program itself, a university can potentially create a separate commercial entity around certain revenue-generating rights that it does control.

Instead of selling part of the football team, the university can transfer or license certain commercial rights into a separate company and allow an outside investor to purchase an ownership position in that business. The university can continue controlling the teams, coaches, competition, student-athlete support, and broader institutional decisions, while the separate company focuses specifically on generating commercial revenue.

The University of Utah recently created one of the clearest examples through Crimson Brand Partners, a separate commercial company formed alongside Otro Capital. The company manages several commercial operations connected to Utah Athletics and the broader university, including sponsorships, ticketing, licensing, events, branding, and digital media. At the same time, Utah continues to control areas such as coaching, recruiting, scheduling, student-athlete support, fundraising, and ownership of its athletic facilities.

That separation is important because it creates something much closer to a conventional investable business. The university can contribute commercial rights that it already controls, while the outside investor contributes capital and potentially operating expertise. If the new company is able to grow sponsorship, ticketing, licensing, events, or other commercial revenue over time, both sides can participate in the additional value being created.

There are still major limitations to this model. Universities cannot simply move every revenue stream into a separate company. Major television rights, for example, are often tied to conference-level media agreements, while existing sponsorship, licensing, and operating contracts can also limit what a university is able to contribute. The value of the joint venture therefore depends heavily on the quality of the commercial rights the university actually controls and how effectively those rights can be monetized.

Still, the structure provides an interesting solution. The university does not need to sell the athletic program itself. Instead, it can create an investable commercial business around specific rights and revenue streams while continuing to control the underlying sports operation.

Another strategy is to avoid investing directly in universities altogether and instead own businesses that generate revenue by serving them. As college athletics becomes increasingly commercial, schools rely on outside companies for sponsorship sales, ticketing, licensing, technology, data, digital media, NIL services, and fan engagement. The companies providing those services can therefore give investors exposure to the growth of college sports without requiring any ownership in an athletic department.

Learfield is one of the clearest examples. The company operates across a large portion of the college sports ecosystem through sponsorship and media sales, ticketing technology, licensing, digital platforms, NIL, and fan data. In 2026, TPG announced an agreement to acquire Learfield through TPG Capital and TPG Sports, giving the firm exposure to a company that works across hundreds of universities rather than one individual athletic program.

The economics of this strategy are much closer to traditional private equity. An investor owns an actual company and attempts to grow its revenue, improve profitability, and ultimately increase the value of the business. The connection to sports comes from the customers the company serves rather than ownership of the teams themselves.

This structure also provides diversification. An investor does not need Texas, Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State individually to succeed. If universities across the country continue spending more on sponsorship sales, ticketing technology, licensing, data, and other commercial infrastructure, businesses positioned across those areas can benefit from the broader growth of the industry.

In that sense, the investment is less about predicting which program will win and more about investing in the continued commercialization of college sports as a whole.

The final strategy is less about simply providing capital and more about helping athletic departments grow the value of the business they already control.

Major college programs already have many of the assets that professional sports organizations spend decades trying to build: recognizable brands, large fan bases, major stadiums, alumni networks, sponsorship demand, and national audiences. The opportunity for an outside partner is to help the university generate more revenue from those existing assets.

For example, an athletic department may have opportunities to improve sponsorship sales, ticket pricing, premium hospitality, fan data, digital products, licensing, or the use of its facilities outside of game day. An outside sports investment or operating firm can bring capital, technology, commercial expertise, and additional resources to help develop those areas rather than simply lending the university money.

This is where the model begins to look more like a business-building partnership. The university contributes the brand, audience, facilities, and commercial rights it already controls, while the outside partner helps improve how those assets are monetized. If the partnership successfully increases revenue, the outside firm can potentially participate in the value it helped create depending on how the agreement is structured.

Elevate's collegiate strategy reflects parts of this approach by combining capital with commercial and operational expertise across areas such as premium seating, sponsorship, ticketing, venue commercialization, and fan engagement.

The exact economics can vary significantly between partnerships. Some may involve management or consulting fees, while others can include revenue participation, financing returns, or other negotiated structures. The important distinction is that the outside partner is not simply providing money. It is actively helping the athletic department build a more valuable commercial business.

The most interesting part of this transition is that college sports already has many of the assets investors normally spend significant amounts of capital trying to create. The largest universities have generations of loyal fans, nationally recognized brands, major rivalries, large stadiums, valuable media exposure, and audiences that consistently return every season.

Texas does not need an investor to create Longhorn fandom, just as Ohio State does not need private equity to create the rivalry with Michigan. Those audiences and traditions already exist. The larger question is how effectively the commercial infrastructure surrounding them can convert that attention into revenue.

As more capital enters college athletics, investors will increasingly need to evaluate whether schools can generate more sponsorship revenue, increase revenue per fan, expand premium hospitality, improve licensing, better use fan data, and create commercial opportunities that extend beyond game day. Those questions will ultimately determine whether outside capital actually creates value.

Getting money into college sports is only the first part of the equation. The harder question is determining where that capital should be deployed and how it can increase the long-term earning power of the underlying sports business.

That will be the focus of the next piece.

For now, the shift is already becoming clear. Investors may not be able to buy the Texas Longhorns, but they are beginning to find increasingly creative ways to invest in the business surrounding them.

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