In the era of NIL, the University of Utah has had quite lackluster spending compared to larger programs. But this might all come to an end as they follow suit with schools like Ohio State and tack on debt but in this case they take to unprecedented levels. 

NIL or Name and Image Likeness is a way for college athletes to be paid. Up until house vs. this meant that players would get money from sponsorships or schools could take money from large individual sponsors, but now schools can directly pay players. Large schools such as Texas, Ohio State, and Oregon have spent upwards of 40 million dollars on their football team since this case went through leaving schools like Utah in the dust who could only scrounge up 6 million dollars for their football team.

To combat this glaring issue Utah has become the first team to work with a private equity firm to increase funding for athletics. They have done this by creating a separate for profit organization called Utah Brands and Entertainment LLC which controls the universities ticketing, licensing, sponsorships, broadcasting, and stadium operations. This LLC is majority owned by the university and headed by the athletic director and partially owned by Otro who is set to invest hundreds of millions into Utah Athletics.

Students are very excited for the deal.

“It will help us compete with these bigger schools. . . give us more funding than BYU so they stop taking our recruits.” Junior Andy Davis said. 

The point he mentioned is an important one as Utah’s in-state rival BYU has heavily out recruited them in recent years. 

Although not everyone is equally happy, some are concerned.

“This equity firm running our athletics looking for more money is just going to drive up the prices to be a fan… games won’t be affordable, merch will be double the price… I mean we might be a little better but is it worth a worse fan experience.” Senior Britton Pearce said.