TJ Walker warns that private equity is buying college sports media and sponsorship rights, locking universities into revenue-sharing deals that could pay coaches $100 million while professors go unpaid. He also covers John Galliano's antisemitic remarks, NYC's AI ban in schools, and a study linking long-term melatonin use to heart-failure risk.
Chapters
Ultimize. Private equity is coming for college sports because apparently college football was the one part of American life that could look at $13 million coaches, palace-sized stadiums, and students gambling on their phones and say, what this needs is more financial engineering. Major colleges can now pay athletes directly, up to about $21 million per school this academic year. Good. The athletes create the product and deserve some of the money, but schools also want expensive coaches, recruiting armies, and locker room waterfalls that make ancient Rome look underfunded. Meanwhile, the average adjunct professor gets about $4,000 for teaching a 3-credit course. Teach 4 courses across an entire year, and that's roughly $16,000. Georgia football coach Kirby Smart received more than $13 million. That equals about 800 of those annual adjunct teaching loads. Not a faculty, an academic zip code. American sports economics is beautiful. When a billionaire wants a stadium, taxpayers become venture capitalists with no equity. When a professor wants health insurance, everybody suddenly discovers fiscal responsibility. Private equity is offering colleges the most seductive sentence in English: Would you like a lot of money right now? That's also how every timeshare presentation begins. The deals vary. An investor can buy part of a commercial company attached to athletics, receive a cut of future television and sponsorship money, or lend cash today and collect from tomorrow's conference checks. Utah created a for-profit company with Otero Capital to manage tickets. sponsorships, licensing, and events, while the university retains coaching, recruiting, and its faculties. The hope is to generate income and protect smaller sports. But investors expect— No time to redo. But investors expect a large return. If revenue disappoints, they will not celebrate student growth. They will raise ticket prices, add premium seating, harvest data, and sponsor anything motionless for 3 seconds. Welcome to the Goldman Sachs Fourth Quarter presented by Ozempic on DraftKings Field at the University of Pepsi. And the school may be trading away future income. It receives cash now, somebody else receives part of tomorrow's revenue. That is selling next decade's season tickets to pay this decade's coach. The Big Ten considered a $2.4 billion investment for 10% of a new media and sponsorship company. Michigan and Southern California objected, and it stalled. Big 12 schools were offered $30 million credit lines, reportedly at 10% interest, paid from future distributions. At least 11 initially declined. When universities borrow tomorrow's television money at credit card rates, the economics department should stage an intervention. Careful contracts might work, A chainsaw can produce tasteful landscaping. I still want to know who's holding it. Now picture a proud old university 5 years after every safeguard fails. The football coach earns $100 million a year plus diplomatic immunity. The quarterback earns $15 million because he's also the university's largest academic department. Professors are unpaid volunteers who grade papers written by ChatGPT. The dormitories belong to WeWork founder Adam Neumann and are rebranded WeDorm. A shared room costs more than a beachfront condo, so only venture capitalists and one sophomore sleeping in a conference pod live there. The English department is luxury seating. Philosophy survives because administrators are debating whether it exists. The only remaining major is sports betting with a minor in debt restructuring. An NCAA survey found 58% of 18 to 22-year-olds had participated in sports betting. Among students living on campus, it was 67%. Not all gamble daily, but the student section is becoming a hedge fund with face paint. My affirmation for university presidents is, I am an educator. My students are people. My television contract is not my inner child. Athletes deserve compensation. Smaller sports deserve protection. Schools can pursue new revenue, but if the investor's return becomes the university's mission, the university has not funded college sports. College sports has acquired the university. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing: no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Okay, John Galliano and the Metropolitan Museum of Art canceled a planned. 2027 retrospective after protests from Jewish leaders, donors, and politicians. Galliano was fired by Christian Dior in 2011 and convicted in France after racist and antisemitic incidents. On video, he said, quote, I love Hitler. People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be effing gassed. And he didn't say effing. I'm cleaning it up here. He didn't. Thank you, John Galliano, for bringing back good old-fashioned recognizable antisemitism. Criticism of government policy sometimes gets labeled hatred of an entire people. Real antisemitism does exist, but the accusation can also shut down debate. Galliano gives us a tutorial with no footnotes. I love Hitler is not foreign policy. You should be gassed. Let's progressives and conservatives agree. Yeah, that's anti-Semitism. The Republican Jewish Coalition recently asked J.D. Vance about right-wing figures who platformed anti-Semites. Vance avoided criticizing Tucker Carlson and said Nick Fuentes really does hate Jews. Okay, correct. Trump once dined with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. But said he didn't know him. Carlson later platformed Fuentes. Yet conservatives treat this as a seating chart problem while branding progressive policy criticism as antisemitic. Here's my communications tip: if defending yourself against antisemitism requires explaining why your friends keep interviewing Hitler fans, your message is not the problem. Your guest list is. Galeano says he's deeply sorry. Great. Atonement should be possible. But personal growth does not require the Met to throw you a gala. New York City is banning student-facing AI through the 8th grade. High schoolers get restricted access. Teachers face limits on how they use it. I understand the fear. AI can produce a Lincoln essay with the confidence of a man who met him. But this is like banning calculators because somebody might cheat on multiplication. Why stop there? Take away laptops and ballpoint pens. Make every student use a quill and ink. Better yet, chisel homework into stone tablets. The dog ate my homework becomes the dog tried and now the dog has a hernia. Teach children to question AI, verify it, and recognize when it is hallucinating like an uncle who just discovered Facebook. If cheating is the concern, give handwritten classroom essays without phones. You will instantly discover who can think and who outsourced the entire 8th grade. The future belongs to people who know when AI is brilliant, when it's wrong, and when it has written a LinkedIn post congratulating itself. My school affirmation: technology serves learning. Panic does not. Teach the tool, test the mind, and stop preparing children for a workplace that disappeared during recess. Let's turn the page to Massachusetts elections yesterday. Massachusetts Democrats decided not to replace several elderly incumbents. Their answer was, the old guys are fine. 80-year-old Senator Ed Markey easily defeated 47-year-old Seth Moulton. Representatives Richard Neal, 77, and Stephen Lynch, 71, also beat younger challengers. Maybe voters are only tired of old politicians they dislike. After watching 80-year-old Donald Trump display the youthful vigor of an energy drink powered by grievance, Massachusetts Democrats found their 80-year-old soothing. And the Senate is perfect for aging gracefully. If a senator falls asleep during a hearing and nobody's watching C-SPAN, Did it really happen? Maybe voters value experience more than age, or maybe the Democratic Party is even more resistant to change than its critics think. Okay, melatonin in the news. A preliminary observational study found chronic insomnia patients using melatonin for at least a year had about a 90% higher 5-year risk of heart failure. 90% higher. This is association, not proof of causation. Ask your doctor. Now, people will refuse public fountain water because it might contain minerals or germs, then swallow a bottle from beside the gummy vitamins because the label has a moon on it. Here's my sleep program: turn off your stupid phone at 8 PM, read a book, keep the room dark and cool. Midnight is not an emergency. If that fails, read one of my books. I guarantee you, you'll fall asleep. The most serious known side effect is waking up with improved eye contact. I'm TJ Walker. Sleep well. Ultimize.
