Vroom, vroom

The GIST: With an uncertain future looming, the latest reimagination of college football (CFB) — called “Project Rudy” — is being spearheaded by former Disney executives as an umbrella-style solution buoyed by private equity (PE). Stack chips for the rainy day.

How did we get here? With conference realignment trends shaking up the sport, decision-making power has largely been consolidated into the SEC and Big Ten conferences. CFB leads college sports in everything from revenue to media rights, with top programs generating more than $100M annually, so concerns about equity and parity have only increased of late.

• Project Rudy isn’t the first attempt to separate the most powerful college football programs from the NCAA, or reshape its structure, as the org’s president called for last year.

Why now? House v. NCAA is on the cusp of a groundbreaking settlement that will introduce revenue sharing of up to $20M with student-athletes. For the NCAA’s most affluent programs, this will quickly become the baseline for recruiting the best players — further increasing the divide between top programs and the smaller schools already struggling to compete.

The proposal: Project Rudy’s 70-team structure, funded by PE firm Smash Capital, would feature tiered revenue distribution, an expanded postseason, and a scheduling overhaul with more marquee games. With an influx of approximately $9B from PE, the project would take CFB’s biggest fish and put them in their own pond in an effort to level the playing field.

• Notably, all 70 programs would be sold as a single-entity media rights package (instead of by conference), pouring rocket fuel on CFB’s already-lucrative media rights and revenue streams. Cha-ching.

Zooming out: PE is increasingly influencing pro sports, including in the WTA and NWSL. And unlike major men’s leagues, the NWSL allows PE firms to own majority stakes in teams. Both Bay FC and Seattle Reign FC have infused additional capital into their assets, raising Seattle’s valuation from $3.5M five years ago to $58M today.

• There’s plenty to sort out before PE investment — or any major CFB reshaping — takes place, but with revenue-sharing imminent in college sports, we can’t help but wonder: How would a change like Project Rudy, and the cash it inevitably generates, influence women’s college sports under Title IX?

The GIST: The NY Liberty and Minnesota Lynx battled it out on the hardwood in last night’s thrilling Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, but the cherry on top of the women’s hoops cake has been the league’s postseason viewership numbers. Let’s dive in.

Fans are tuning into the postseason in droves. Excluding last night’s game, the league averaged 970K viewers across 17 postseason matchups, a 142% increase YoY. This year has been the most-viewed postseason across ESPN networks since the league’s inaugural season in 1997. Love to see it.

It’s bigger than the Caitlin Clark effect. While the Indiana Fever superstar helped smash attendance and viewership records throughout the regular season, the W’s postseason popularity has extended beyond the Fever’s first-round series loss.

• The two 2024 semifinal series averaged 850K viewers across nine games, up 99% YoY to become the most-watched semis on ESPN networks in 25 years.

The league’s popularity doesn’t stop here. It’s been a historic season for the W on all fronts, from viewership and attendance highs to record-breaking on-court action and rising team valuations. With the Golden State Valkyries joining the fold next season, followed by Toronto and Portland in 2026, the popularity of the WNBA is at an all-time high — and the future is bright.

Hiring? The GIST’s job board is your one-stop shop for sharing your open roles with women and nonbinary folks in the game.

Recruiting diverse candidates into the industry is one of the best ways to level the playing field. When you post your roles on the job board, you reach our unique GIST community that’s committed to changing the game.

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In this newsletter, we like to highlight other organizations and their big wins, but allow us to have the spotlight for just a minute.

1M: We have over 1M GISTers across our growing ecosystem of newsletters, socials, and podcasts.

83%: The percentage of GISTers who prefer to support brands that support women’s sports and media.

91%: The ratio of GISTers who are interested in products we choose to share with them.

Assuming you’re a business person or care deeply about women’s sports, we’d love to talk about how we can authentically connect your company with our sought after audience of underserved sports fans.