What We Know About the U’s Private Equity Deal
RadioWest
KUER
4.7 • 772 Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Support for the Radio West podcast comes from Harmon's Grocery, committed to excellent service and friendly smiles. Your food is our passion. |
| 0:12.2 | The University of Utah's football team is good, right? Good reputation, solid record. But we're in a smaller market, |
| 0:23.5 | and we're in a conference that's trying to keep pace with the biggest programs in the country |
| 0:27.4 | for TV contracts and athletes. Yes, remember, college athletes can get paid these days, |
| 0:33.6 | and not just for what they do on the field. We're in that NIL phase. It stands for the other |
| 0:38.5 | things they get paid for, their name, image, and likeness. And when you're one of the little guys, |
| 0:44.3 | or any way, the littler guys, you've got to get creative. And this is as good an explanation for |
| 0:49.8 | the deal the university agreed to back in December that got the attention of all of college sports. |
| 0:56.1 | The University of Utah entered into this partnership with a private equity firm called OTROCHO Capital. |
| 1:02.4 | And under the arrangement, OTROTRO would invest millions into the program in exchange for a cut of concessions and ticketing, licensing, things like that. |
| 1:12.9 | It's an ownership stake for this so-called for-profit business to make money off |
| 1:18.0 | university sports. |
| 1:20.4 | And Matt Baker of The Athletic, that's the New York Times sports site, described it as the |
| 1:25.4 | clearest window yet into a complex model that is changing college sports. |
| 1:31.1 | This week, Baker explained to us how we got to this point. |
| 1:35.8 | The backstory for this goes back years and years and years. |
| 1:40.1 | Schools make a lot of money from football and men's basketball. |
| 1:43.9 | And the question is, how should players be compensated, if at all? |
| 1:48.0 | This is where collegiate sports should be. |
| 1:50.8 | What are the benefits that players should get? |
| 1:53.4 | They should be reimbursed for that. |
| 1:55.1 | And I was the, you know, I was the first NCAA president to sort of... |
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