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On Tuesday, the University of Utah became the first school to announce plans for a partnership between an athletic department and a private equity firm, changing the landscape of college sports forever.
Though the agreement still needs to be finalized, which University of Utah president Taylor Randall says will happen in early 2026, the partnership between the university and private equity firm Otro Capital is set to generate at least $500 million dollars for the Utah athletic department, per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
Utah created a new entity, Utah Brands & Entertainment, which will oversee revenue sources, including trademark licensing, event-related revenues, sponsorships, ticketing and more.
The University of Utah will have majority ownership and decision-making power in the new company. Harlan will be the chairman of the board and Utah will have four members, including Harlan, on the board. Otro will have two members on the board and one other board spot will be filled by a Utah donor.
As part of the proposed deal, the university is “offering a prominent group of donors the ability to purchase a stake in Utah Brands & Entertainment,” per Yahoo. The $500 million in expected capital will come both from Otro and donors that purchase a stake in the new company. A nine-figure cash infusion will come from Otro, Dellenger said.
Investors, including Otro, would receive a percentage of the revenue generated by Utah Brands & Entertainment. The exact percentage is not known at this point.
Otro Capital’s portfolio includes the Formula 1 team Alpine Racing, sports analytics platform Two Circles and sports and event marketing company FlexWork Sports. Otro co-founder Alec Scheiner has been the vice president of the Dallas Cowboys and the president of the Cleveland Browns.
The Utah athletic department will be solely responsible for the hiring and firing of coaches, conference membership, scholarship management, player management, revenue-sharing membership and compliance. Those aspects of the athletic department are not included in Utah Brands & Entertainment.
“An exit strategy — in five to seven years — exists, and the university holds the right to purchase Otro’s ownership stake,” Dellenger wrote.
The proposed deal comes at an inflection point for college sports. Beginning this year, schools were allowed to pay out $20.5 million of their athletic department revenue directly to athletes. The bar was set, and to compete at a high level in college athletics, paying out the $20.5 million has become the bare minimum.
From the start of revenue sharing, Utah has been paying out the maximum allowed, with around 75% of that money going to the football team.
For Utah’s athletic department, which made $4 or $5 million in profit in a good year, paying out the new $20.5 million expense was not going to be sustainable long term.
“As we penciled everything out, it just wasn’t adding up,” Harlan said in a meeting with the university’s board of trustees.
Utah’s athletic department is the first to strike a partnership with a private equity firm, but the expectation is that more schools will follow soon.
A big chunk of Utah’s athletic department revenue comes from the Big 12 Conference’s media rights deals and other conference payouts, including shares of revenues from College Football Playoff games, bowl games and the NCAA basketball tournament.
But there are areas for growth under Utah’s control.
Utah brought in $14.8 million in revenue from ticket sales, per the athletic department’s FY24 report, with football making up $11.8 million of that figure. “Royalties, Licensing, Advertisement and Sponsorships” brought in an additional $11.2 million in revenue.
The goal of private equity, and any business, is of course to turn a profit, so it stands to reason that prices for Utah tickets and merchandise will rise as Orto looks to make its money back, and more.
That’s something that Harlan did not shy away from in a press conference following the announcement.
Season tickets have steadily increased in price through the years, but demand has remained strong — Rice-Eccles Stadium was sold out for each home game in 2025, as it has been every year since 2010.
In August, Harlan said that Utah has to be careful with how much they increase tickets, especially season tickets, each year.
“There’s a number that we can hit out there in ticket sales that we will see people stop renewing at the level. We’re very, very well aware of that. So we have to be very cautious as we proceed with that,” Harlan said.
In Tuesday’s press conference, Harlan acknowledged that ticket prices will be raised.
“Certainly since 2018, since my arrival, we don’t run from it — we’ve raised prices. We’ve got an incredible program in football in terms of all their success,” Harlan said.
Just how much will ticket prices go up? That’s still to be determined, and that process will involve a lot of data and analytics.
“I think what is true before today and will remain true afterwards is that whenever I have, and my team has, examined season tickets, single-game pricing, it is an intense process. And certainly over the last few years, a lot of data-driven variable pricing, all of the new technology that is used,” Harlan said.
“I mean we’ve got everything you can imagine. Not only who bought the tickets, that’s pretty easy, but who came, what time they show up to games. I’m not telling you we’re watching everybody, folks that aren’t showing up to basketball games, but we know who you are. We love them all. So that’s always been a very analytical approach.”
At the same time, harkening back to his August comments, Harlan said that “common sense” has to be used.
“I’ve specifically spoken to this group (Otro) , it’s something that I wanted to understand. I studied what they did at the Cowboys and what they’ve done at the Browns. Within all that analytics … within all that data and all that committee comes common sense,” Harlan said.
“And I think we have to be very cognizant of the different fan base that we have and the different sections and be very, very smart about it. But I don’t want to act like season tickets aren’t going to get raised. That happens in the industry, but how we do it is going to still continue to be monitored.”
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