{"id":47166,"date":"2025-11-10T22:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/47166\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T22:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:38:11","slug":"california-university-pension-attempting-to-buy-stake-in-big-ten-college-sports-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/47166\/","title":{"rendered":"California university pension attempting to buy stake in Big Ten college sports conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The University of California\u2019s pension investment arm<\/a> is attempting to acquire a 10 per cent stake in Big Ten Conference, one of intercollegiate sports\u2019 most successful franchises, known for the Rose Bowl and a multi-year television deal with Fox.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just made an offer to buy 10 per cent of the Big Ten, which is the big sports conference in the U.S.,\u201d Jagdeep Singh Bachher, chief investment officer and vice-president of investments at the University of California where he oversees an investment portfolio of around US$180 billion, said at a conference in Toronto on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it goes through by \u2026 the 21st of November,\u201d added Baccher, who is also chancellor of the University of Waterloo and was speaking at a conference run by the Canadian university.<\/p>\n

His comments appeared to a confirm a story reported by Yahoo Sports on Oct. 10, which, citing unnamed sources, said negotiations were underway to inject about US$2.4 billion into the conference\u2019s 18 schools and help create a long-discussed subsidiary called Big Ten Enterprises. That report said private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Blackstone were also circling the sports franchise.<\/p>\n

Another report published by frontofficesports.com said the proposed deal with UC Investments would require the assets to be spun into a private fund called Big Ten Enterprises, in which the investment group would take a 10 per cent stake. That report said the proposed transaction, which would require the schools to sign a grant of rights contract binding the conference together through 2046, was controversial among some university board members.<\/p>\n

Baccher, who declined to elaborate on the UC Investments bid following his remarks, told the audience in Toronto that he sees sports as a \u201ccultural capital\u201d investment rather than simply venture capital or a private equity investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the future for our young generation is the one thing that glues people to technology and content: sports,\u201d he said, citing the recent excitement over the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> making it to the World Series, despite losing in seven games to the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat creates a whole unique set of opportunities: eSports, media, entertainment, tech. I actually call it cultural capital, not even venture capital or private equity,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s an incredible opportunity set there. So that\u2019s where I\u2019ve been just immersed, in that whole area. It\u2019s been a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of California\u2019s pension investment arm is attempting to acquire a 10 per cent stake in Big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10990,7,9,8,6379,30843,5180,30846,9712,53,13666,30847,30848,30844,30845,57,13652,2012,30849],"class_list":["post-47166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chief-investment-officer","tag-intercollegiate-sports","tag-investment","tag-investment-portfolio","tag-jagdeep-singh-bachher","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","tag-private-equity-firms","tag-private-equity-investment","tag-rose-bowl-stadium","tag-sports-conference","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-ucla-bruins","tag-university-of-california","tag-university-of-waterloo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}