A lot of people texted me this week asking if I’d “seen the news” about private equity entering college sports.
Yes. Of course I’ve seen it.
Some of us predicted it.
According to a recent piece making the rounds, private equity is officially circling college athletics. Media rights. Conference realignment. Revenue sharing. “Student-athlete monetization.”
In other words: inefficiency.
This is Ole Miss’s new Athletic Director, who will perform his duties from Lower Manhattan. Rest assured, they will not lose their next Lane Kiffin
And when there’s inefficiency, there’s opportunity.
Let me be clear: college sports has needed professional management for years. Boosters running NIL collectives like Venmo accounts. Coaches making $10 million while the locker room has fluorescent lighting. Universities pretending this is about “education” while negotiating TV deals like sovereign nations.
That ends now.
This must be a lot of money for them!
Private equity doesn’t ruin things, we optimize them to operate as smoothly as my alma mater’s championship fencing squad.
However, the Harvard fencing team did not require much in the way of additional capital. That is why it was so nice to slip away yesterday and visit my old teammates back at the home gym to see if I could still parry like it was 2007. Check out my moves for yourself in the clip below:
When I left my fencing lessons, I had to traverse an unattended parking lot to get my Bentayaga because the gym’s valet must have had off for the holidays. Whilst crossing the parking lot, I came across the missing valet, who happened to be there after all, but turns out here was SMOKING REEFER in the parking lot! After calling the police, I immediately put my analyst on the case to investigate why my day was nearly ruined by a delinquent fencing school valet:
Turns out, The Cannabis Business is BACK!
CNBC is like a Bloomberg terminal for your Grandma
A lot of you have been asking why cannabis stocks are suddenly ripping again.
Short answer: regulation fatigue.
Long answer: my dear friend Donald Trump.
According to a piece I skimmed on CNBC, the market is getting excited about the possibility of looser federal cannabis regulations — including reclassification that would magically make the entire industry feel “institutional” overnight. And once something feels institutional, capital shows up wearing a Patagonia vest pretending it’s always believed in the mission.
This isn’t about people getting high.
It’s about balance sheets getting sober.
If cannabis moves out of Schedule I, suddenly banks can lend, taxes stop being punitive, and private equity firms can do what we do best: roll up fragmented operators, clean up governance, install a real CFO, and quietly forget the social justice part of the pitch deck.
Volatility will remain, obviously. So will moral outrage.
But markets don’t care about vibes — they care about access to capital and regulatory air cover.
And this week, cannabis got both.
I’m not saying we’re early.
I’m saying we’re positioned.
I converted my pool house into a 37,000 square foot hydroponic start up called Harvard Parmaceutica
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Check out my Conversation About How Brady Perrigo Built Del Toro Shoes
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Due to My Role is looking for the funniest PE Stories you got. Please submit a funny anecdote as it pertains to the beautiful world of private equity. Whether your local florist was sold to FLOWERCORP and now you can only buy petunias on subscription, or if you recently helped PORTCOS train AI robots to replace the senior citizen greeters at Walmart, we want to hear from you!
