LSU Athletics may have just stepped into a financial arrangement that changes the way the department is funded, but the school has not said so publicly.
Reports now say LSU has entered into a private financing investment involving hundreds of millions of dollars tied to future media-rights revenue, with football at the center of the deal. Veteran Louisiana business journalist JR Ball, speaking Monday on Talk Louisiana with Tiger Rag president Jim Engster, said LSU has already “closed” on what he described as a venture-capital investment fund.
“LSU has closed a deal for 10 percent of LSU’s media rights - primarily tied to football - that will generate in excess of $100 million,” Ball said.
Ball also said investors in the “six-figure donation range” would either be bought out by LSU after five years or remain involved in future growth tied to the next SEC television agreement if LSU does not repurchase the interest.
Tiger Rag has not independently confirmed those details.
If the reporting proves accurate, the move would rank among the biggest financial overhauls in LSU Athletics history and would put the school in the same conversation as other major athletic departments looking outside the traditional playbook to cover rising costs.
That possibility lands right on top of warnings LSU Athletic Director Verge Ausberry made months ago. In a February interview with Tiger Rag, Ausberry said the pressure on the department was unlike anything it had faced before and that private equity had to be considered along with every other option.
“People talk about private equity firms,” Ausberry said last February. “And you really don’t want to go that way, but you’ve got to put everything on the table.”
He was even more direct when explaining why the idea gave him pause.
“Well, private equity is a different ballgame. They come in with a certain percentage long term.
How does that look? When you sit down and talk about these things, how much is this going to cost us?
You deal with private equity, they’re going to want some long term inventory. Once you get certain benchmarks, how long does that go.
Short term or long term?”
For Ausberry, the biggest issue was control.
“A lot of times with private equity, they come in and start controlling things,” he said. “You lose some control when you deal with private equity. But we’re going to make this work.”
Tiger Rag asked Ausberry on Monday whether he still held those views in light of the reported deal. He had not responded by late Monday.
The backdrop to all of this is LSU’s projected $25 million to $35 million deficit for 2026, a figure Tiger Rag had been reporting for months before other outlets began to report it recently.
The university has not publicly announced any transaction or released documents supporting the reported arrangement.
Meanwhile, LSU held meetings Monday with about 40 of its largest athletic supporters at the Governor’s Mansion, with LSU president Wade Rousse and Governor Jeff Landry discussing the future financial direction of LSU Athletics.
For now, the biggest questions remain unanswered: whether an agreement has actually been executed, who the investors are, what legal entity signed on, whether LSU still has full operational control, whether the Board of Supervisors approved the arrangement, and whether the deal will be made public.
Until LSU releases the documents, the structure and long-term consequences of the reported transaction remain unclear.
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