We ‘ve been hearing for years now how private equity is desperate to get its grubby paws on college football. While they’ve made inroads in several places, a new report reveals how one PE firm has made its pitch to privatize the FCS Playoffs.
As first reported by Hero Sports, the Collegiate Commissioners Association met in Chicago this week, where private-equity firm Sequence Equity presented a plan to a group of FCS commissioners that would, in the words of Front Office Sports, “extract more value from the FCS postseason.”
Sequence Equity describes itself as “a multi-strategy investment platform based in Los Angeles, investing in sports, media, entertainment, technology, and infrastructure.”
“We lose money,” a sitting athletic director whose program has made multiple playoff runs in the past decade told Hero Sports. “It’s a great product and tremendously undervalued. Surely there has to be another way. I think every athletic director, president, and commissioner will listen if something like this is presented.”
According to FOS, the proposal called for a new playoff system to be run by a private entity, majority-owned by FCS conferences, with a minority stake held by Sequence Equity. In return, the PE firm would offer “tens of millions of dollars in investment,” per a source.
The proposal called for the FCS Playoffs, currently owned and operated by the NCAA, to be reformed as an LLC, much like how the FBS’s College Football Playoff is. While the FCS Playoff won’t command anything in the ballpark of the $7.8 billion over six years that the CFP media rights package recently secured, Sequence made it clear that they believe the FCS is currently leaving money on the table.
The timing might be right for the FCS to make a move to enhance its media rights opportunities.
Per Hero Sports, last season’s FCS championship game between North Dakota State and Montana State drew 2.41 million viewers on ESPN, the second-most-watched title game to date. Overall, the 2024 playoffs averaged 1.3 million viewers across ESPN platforms, its best numbers since the 2009-10 season.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.