The university regent lobbying against his own school

Hello y’all! You may have noticed there was no newsletter yesterday. That’s my bad. I didn’t really wrap things up until 10 p.m., and it felt too late to send. But I hope I’ve conditioned you enough that there was some Pavlovian twinge of longing.

So this is our weekly Wednesday Deep Dive, presented by Thursday. We’ll still do a Thursday email, which will either come today or tomorrow. Days, what do they even mean?

This week, I went down into the bowels of Delaware corporate filings to suss out how hard a venture capital firm is actually lobbying Congress. 

Along the way, I found something even more interesting. Or, it’s totally nbd! Who am I to say? The fun thing about the world is that you get to decide.

I hope you enjoy. 

One of the biggest objections the Big Ten and SEC have with the Protect College Sports Act is a provision that would allow college football to pool its television rights. 

Proponents believe that it would double the revenue the sport earns from its current broadcast deals. Those two conferences disagree. So much so they’ve joined forces to fight it. 

In February, they delivered a white paper to Congress that argued the lofty projections were bunk. 

When the new bill first hit the floor, they issued a joint statement opposing it. When concessions were proposed, the conferences stood firm. 

After the PCSA passed committee this June, one of its authors, Sen. Maria Cantwell, fired back at the big universities battling her.

"Athletic directors and presidents are going to get their comeuppance from regents who are all the sudden saying, 'What the hell are you doing sending these letters [opposing the bill]?'" 

That Cantwell mentioned support from “regents upset about letters” seemed oddly specific. At least to me.

Maybe, I thought, she was referring to the university regent who is being paid to lobby Congress by the venture capital firm pushing to pass this legislation.

All while the president at the system’s biggest campus, a Big Ten school, is signing letters to Congress opposing the bill. 

Smash Sports is an offshoot of the venture capital firm Smash Capital. In its short existence, it’s become the leading force behind the push to amend the Sports Broadcasting Act, which would allow college football to sell its television rights in one big package. 

And it’s spending a lot of money to get its way.

Since July 2025, the Big Ten has spent $520,000 on lobbying Congress. The SEC, over that same time, spent $600,000. 

Smash Sports? They’ve dropped $750,000. But you wouldn’t know that unless you knew where to look.

According to lobbying reports, Smash Sports itself spent $220,000. It also paid two other firms an additional $170,000. 

When Smash Capital first pitched schools, it dubbed its masterplan Project Rudy. Through an LLC spun up for the project, Rudy OpCo, Smash gave another firm $200,000.

It also hired a fourth firm, this one under its parent company, Smash Capital.

And for $160,000, they got a lobbyist who just so happens to be a regent at the University of Maryland System. Who, while working for Smash Capital, sat in a board meeting about Maryland’s relationship with the Big Ten. 

And who was also recently embroiled in the Epstein scandal.