Chad Weiberg confirms Oklahoma State not opting in to credit line through Big 12 private capital deal

Through a private capital deal with RedBird and Weatherford Capital, Big 12 schools can gain access a line of credit. However, no school has publicly said it plans to opt in, and Oklahoma State athletics director Chad Weiberg confirmed the Cowboys also are not doing so.

As part of the five-year agreement, the Big 12 will see an infusion of at least $12.5 million in capital to the league office. Schools can also opt in to receive a capital credit line of $30 million apiece. However, since the conference approved the deal, at least 13 schools have said no, according to USA Today.

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Oklahoma State is among the schools that are not planning to opt in right now, Weiberg said. He cited other potential revenue opportunities if OSU needed them.

“RedBird is a huge global entity,” Weiberg said on Inside OSU Athletics. “They’ve got a lot of partnerships. The conference office will get out of it some money to be able to invest in other business entities, take an investment in those to try to grow revenues from a different revenue stream. That’s something that’s worth exploring in this time that we’re in. And then, the schools have the option to opt in to a line of credit through that. That’s up to each institution. It doesn’t affect the deal with the conference itself.

“As of right now, that’s something that Oklahoma State will not do at this point. Should we need something like that, we believe that we’ll probably have other avenues or levers that we can pull first before that. But again, I applaud the commissioner for making those options available to us.”

As for the revenue streams Oklahoma State can tap into, Weiberg cited factors such as multimedia rights agreements and licensing deals, in addition to the Big 12’s TV contract with FOX and ESPN. He also pointed to brand partnerships and Cowboys fans supporting those businesses.

“We’ve got a great, loyal fan base, and that’s still the biggest driver of our revenue streams,” Weiberg said. “There’s those things like multimedia rights, our partnerships with our apparel providers – so, in our case, Nike. … Those are all things that we have to continue to look at. Institutional support is something that is another bucket in that. Every institution approaches that differently.

“Of course, there’s all different kinds of institutions. Even in our own conference, there are several private institutions that do things very different than the public institutions do – like we are. There’s different rules and regulations, both by the legislature or by the state board of regents, for us and others of how that works. That would be another bucket.”