The University of Utah just made college sports history by closing the first-ever private equity deal for a single school. Word is, they are partnering with a New York investment firm called Otro Capital, which is pumping $100 million into Utah’s athletic department upright. Over time, that investment could even grow to $500 million!

According to Sportico, the deal closed on June 12. To make this work, they created a brand-new, for-profit company named Crimson Brand Partners to handle all the money-making parts of the sports program. This outside entity is tasked with modernizing and turbocharging the business side of Utah’s 19 varsity sports programs to keep them nationally competitive.

To get this new corporate setup up and running, the university had to make some very tough decisions. Last month, the athletic department laid off staff in its business and commercial departments. It was a difficult move, but around 15 of those employees are now being moved into the new company.

However, there is a catch: they must go through interviews again to officially earn their jobs back under the new private structure.

Even though it started with job cuts, the goal of Crimson Brand Partners is to grow quickly and on a big scale. The company plans to increase its workforce to about 70 employees. It has also picked its top leaders, who will start on July 1, 2026, when the new fiscal year begins.

The group includes CEO Matt Webb, who used to handle sponsorship deals for NFL teams like the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns. He will work with Chief Commercial Officer Alex Schulte, Chief Ticketing Officer Joel Adams, and CFO Garrett Best.

Utah made this change mainly because of money problems. In the 2024 fiscal year, Utah Athletics lost $17 million. The program spent $126.8 million but only made $109.8 million. To keep things going, it had to use almost all of its savings, dropping from $61.5 million to just $5.8 million.

Another big reason is the House v. NCAA deal. Starting in the 2025–2026 season, schools will need to pay players up to $20.5 million each year. This will cost athletic departments even more money, which is why Utah is moving to this new private setup.

Crimson Brand Partners will try to fix this and handle the purely commercial side of Utah sports. Judging solely based on word of mouth, they are in charge of selling tickets to stadium events, securing corporate sponsorships, licensing merchandise, and running digital marketing campaigns to generate the millions needed to pay the players.

The idea here is to use corporate expertise to bring in a lot more cash than a traditional college sports department could on its own.

Some folks might think, ‘Utah sold its soul here with this private equity deal.’ Well, not exactly.

Why is it not as bad as it may seem?

The university took strict precautions to ensure it did not completely sell out its sports culture. Under NCAA rules, the school must retain total institutional control, meaning Utah still makes 100% of the decisions regarding hiring and firing coaches, athlete recruiting, game scheduling, player compliance, and all other sorts of decisions.

Utah’s Athletic Director, Mark Harlan, will pull double duty by serving as the chairman of the new company’s board to keep university values first. The school’s own Growth Capital Partners Foundation maintains a strict majority ownership stake in the company. The Otro Capital takes a passive minority share, reportedly up to 49%, and claims two seats on the board.

Because mixing public state-university funds with private Wall Street capital is a huge experiment, Utah built a safety net into the contract. If the partnership causes tax issues or fails to hit its revenue goals, the university holds a first right of refusal buy-back option.

This allows the school to completely purchase back Otro Capital’s ownership stake and exit the deal within a five-to-seven-year timeframe. End of the day, it is a high-stakes gamble that the rest of the Big 12 is watching closely as college sports shifts from a booster-funded model to a corporate-backed industry.