Some things I learned this week about Smash Sports

Hello and welcome to the Wednesday edition of FOIAball, which is just for our paid subscribers. 

Today, we’re digging into the venture capital firm that wants to take a big stake in college football’s very lucrative television contracts. What schools might it have been courting? And does its founder even watch sports?

I think you know we don’t ask rhetorical questions here without a good answer.

Let’s dive right in. 

On March 3, Smash Sports—an offshoot of the venture capital firm Smash Capital—hosted some of college football’s biggest powerbrokers for a roundtable discussion in Dallas. 

The meeting came during a high-stakes stretch for amateur athletics, where every stakeholder and straphanger was lobbying and jockeying to “save” the $50 billion college sports industry.

A few days later, President Donald Trump brought NCAA President Charlie Baker, six conference commissioners, and several athletics directors to the White House for a summit, a precursor to an executive order he released last Friday. 

At the same time, schools like Louisville and Virginia Tech were warning, in dire missives, about their untenable financial states. 

Despite college football raking in cash, and universities willingly funding every expenditure, everyone thinks the status quo needs a dramatic reconfiguration. 

For investment firms, it’s a great time to (maybe) make bank. Private investment is looming everywhere. According to Yahoo Sports, Smash Capital has been working behind the scenes to court schools for some time.

We can point to at least one bit of outreach it made, thanks to some records we obtained.