I have a saying that sometimes makes me seem like a tin foil hat wearer, but it tends to be true more often than not....when something doesn't make logical sense, follow the money.

There is a fairly long thread here about the concept of the PAC selling a private equity stake and the biggest response seems to be 'Huh??" It makes no sense. The concept doesn't fit into the idea of what private equity investments are after, profits in the near term and growth (maybe). If this were to surface for the SEC, I'm still not sure it would make sense, but it sure makes no sense for a league that is second rate at best in generating revenue and if anything is falling further behind every day.

But, are we seeing the man behind the curtain now? Under the guise of "fairness" the CA senate has passed a bill that would allow student athletes to profit off their likeness, in other words sign endorsement deals and sign with agents. Lets assume that it passes and gets signed, going into effect in 2023 as currently written. How does that change the landscape of college sports and more specifically, does it make the PAC media equity idea suddenly make sense? Follow the money. A two pronged approach, offer the media rights while pushing legislation through that makes those media rights worth much more than they appear to be. You don't think that any pols in the CA assembly are receiving any money from potential private equity investors do you????

The NCAA has already warned that schools would be ineligible for NCAA championships under that law. That would be just a speedbump. Won't take long for a suit, especially one in a court in CA to end that practice. But so what if it doesn't. Maybe the goal is to get rid of the NCAA or at least make it irrelevant for the schools that part of the new world.

I would think basketball would be the first impacted because it is more personality driven (few players, no helmets, etc). What percentage of players who think they are the next Lebron will go to a CA school to build their brand and get paid. I think the top talent would shift almost over-night to those schools. Football would be close behind and suddenly the CA schools and the PAC are relevant again. Second tier sports like baseball, soccer, etc could pull such a disproportionate level of talent as to make them revenue producers. Most baseball players today are paying for school, can you imagine a scenario where they could pay for school with endorsement money and play in SoCal, how many kids that are signing minor league deals today would suddenly be playing in college instead?

Suddenly that media rights package that everyone is laughing at is worth a mint as cable companies and streaming services (the real key to the future of media) will be signing them up in droves.

Of course, the rest of the country will not sit back and watch. You know TX and FL are already writing their bills. OH, MI and AL probably as well as college sports have a way out of perspective value in those states. But in the end, most states will end up following suit because the members of the legislatures are all graduates of universities and won't want their beloved U to be left out of the arms race.

And that is what I believe is the real goal here and the real follow the money. The NCAA will be destroyed by this. While that seems like a good thing, beware the devil you don't know. Who will fill that void? Agents, shoe and apparel companies, media companies and lots of money. I believe it will be the end of college sports as we know it and will result in a move to privatized athletics associated with schools for the brand and a further divide between the haves and the have not's. Not shocking the announcement that FSU is privatizing their Ath Dept.

The biggest losers will be the 80% of 1A schools that are left behind and more specifically the non-revenue sports at those schools that will be completely starved of money. As private organizations, title IX won't apply to the new pro-sports organization, so many women's sports will be left out of the new organization because they won't produce enough cash. Schools that are left out will have to cut most programs because without the money from FB and and MBB their budgets will be destroyed and what they do have will have to spread "fairly" between men's and women's sports, FB will die because it costs a ton and creates 80+ scholarships that have to be matched in women's sports.

This is probably worst case, but if you want to get a glimpse of how this would play out look no further than the CFB Playoff compared with the NCAA MBB tourney. Every year in MBB different teams compete and while there are some blue bloods (that most people understand are kept there because of shoe and agent money pushing the talent to those schools) there are lots of schools competing with a shot to win because the talent is spread out. CFB has consolidated to a group of ten or so teams because that is who is on TV in prime-time and being discussed on all the media outlets all the time and thus drawing the bulk of the talent (and likely agent and shoe money as well). It only took 5 years to go from a lot of teams competing for a shot, to what we have now which is a small handful, driven in large part by the mouse taking over the sport by controlling the media rights.

Going to be fun to watch how this plays out.....