Former Utah alum and NBA executive Dave Checketts isn’t a fan of Utah’s historic private equity deal with Otro Capital.
Checketts described the deal to Front Office Sports as the Utes selling off “their future” during a recent episode of Portfolio Players.
The comments came during a discussion about what types of deals Checketts might be interested in striking with his sports investment fund Cynosure Checketts Sports Capital. He started by mentioning basketball and golf, and quickly added college sports, though he said: “College sports has got to settle its way a little bit before you invest.”
Checketts suggested he wouldn’t approach investments in the way that Otro Capital did with Utah.
“It’s one thing to do what the University of Utah has done—kind of sell off their sports program because they want a better stadium and they want a basketball building, and they want it right now,” he said. “So they kind of sold off their future. That’s different than the kind of investments we are talking about where college sports, if it’s possible, to make a big change.”
