Countless stadiums, arenas, golf tournaments and bowl games have sponsors in their titles. The world’s most prestigious soccer league was named the Barclays Premier League until 2016. Private equity firms currently hold ownership stakes in more than 60 North American sports franchises, according to Pitchbook, as well as many of the top soccer clubs in Europe.

But when news broke Thursday that the Big 12 is entertaining both a potential title sponsorship deal with insurance giant Allstate and a $1 billion private equity partnership, you could almost hear the collective reaction: “How dare they?!”

GO DEEPER

Big 12 discussing PE investment, sale of naming rights to Allstate

Kirk Wakefield, a Baylor University marketing professor, had a much different reaction to the possible title sponsorship.

“You wonder why people haven’t done that already,” said Wakefield, who runs a research firm that studies sponsorship impacts for sports leagues and brands. “It’s such an obvious opportunity.”

USC sports business professor David Carter looks at the plight of the Big 12, which lags hundreds of millions a year in revenue behind the Big Ten and SEC, and sees private equity as a matter of Darwinian survival. To win national championships, Big 12 schools need to be able to spend like…

Looking for the chalkiest region in the first round of the NCAA Tournament? Our model thinks it’s likely to be the East. Only two of six Bracket Breaker games have an upset chance of greater than 10 percent, and no team has more than a 28 percent chance of springing an upset.

Below is a game-by-game analysis of every first-round matchup with Bracket Breaker implications in the East. We’ve already examined the Midwest and the West and will break down the South on Wednesday and every potential second-round matchup. To qualify as a Bracket Breaker game, opponents need to be separated by at least five seeds (which is why we don’t cover the 8/9 or 7/10 games). Our analysis adjusts teams’ basic strengths according to how closely they statistically resemble favorites and underdogs from past tournaments and, where appropriate, by style matchups. We can’t tell you how to bet — that depends on how richly your pool rewards deep upsets and your tolerance for risk. But if you’re interested in how our model works, check out this piece.

And now, onto the upsets!

More Bracket Breakers: Men’s Top 10 Upsets | Midwest Region Preview | West Region Preview | Women’s Top 10 Upsets

Odds are from BetMGM. For more Underdogs, listen to Peter and Jordan’s podcast. For all our…

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Eighty-four-year-old Roberta Burkholder, her white parka zipped to her neck, stands alongside her 81-year-old husband, Orval. She arrived here, at the back doors of Indiana University’s Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, around 7 a.m. It’s now pushing 5:30 in the evening. To their left are Trenton Kemp and his 13-year-old son, Maguire. They flew into town two days prior from Boise, Idaho, and planted at this particular spot around 6:30. Another gentleman, Josh Kennedy, flew in from Norman, Okla., before parking here before dawn.

Chris Coats, a kindly white-haired gentleman dressed head-to-toe in Hoosier gear, came comparatively late, around 8 a.m., but has since become the de facto mayor of this pop-up community. He knows everyone’s backstories, if not all of their names. The lady behind him, Coats explains, was smart enough to pack chicken salad sandwiches, and that fella over there, the one in the overalls? He bought four pizzas and some Wendy’s and generously shared them with everyone.

This cross-section of Americana — young, old, male, female — forms the head of a line that snakes in all directions; so many people in line a 10-year veteran of the security team at IU prays that they all have a ticket to get in the building. They have collected…

Collegiate soccer has long played a significant role in the women’s game, developing generations of players who have gone on to become top professionals, international stars, and influential coaches and executives. But as pro leagues evolve and the economics of the college game change, so too does its role in the wider ecosystem of the sport.

On Friday, the showpiece event of the college soccer season commences when Florida State faces Clemson (6 p.m. ET), and Brigham Young faces Stanford (8:30 p.m. ET) in the 2023 Women’s College Cup in Cary, North Carolina. The final will be played on Monday (6 p.m. ET; all matches on ESPNU and ESPN+). But the NCAA tournament began with 64 teams ranging from long-established powerhouses of the game with well-stocked trophy cabinets to upstart programs at varying stages of contention. Over the coming weeks, The Athletic will tell the stories of several teams in each category, so stay tuned.

But first, we’re taking a look at the NCAA players who could soon make the leap to the NWSL through the league’s college draft. The draft will be held on Jan. 12 of next year and players don’t have to register for the draft until Jan. 8, so the draft pool is still very much up in the air. However, what follows is an early attempt at putting…

With the advent of the transfer portal, it’d be fair to assume there are fewer opportunities for freshmen these days. And that might be true. But when I sat down to put together my list of the 10 freshmen I’m most excited to see play this season, the group quickly expanded to 15 … and then 20. Some of these players will have opportunities to impress because of the roster churn at their program and others are going to be good enough to leapfrog over older, more established players.

These 20 players — for a variety of reasons — are the 20 I’m most intrigued to see this season as they make the jump from high school (or international) ball to the NCAA.

1. JuJu Watkins

USC guard, 6-2
Sierra Canyon High School, Los Angeles

In working on this story, I talked with a bunch of college coaches. At first, my question was: “Which freshmen are going to have freshman all-American-type seasons?” I quickly needed to add: “Other than JuJu.” There seems to be a solid consensus that Watkins — the No. 1 player in the 2023 class — has the potential to live up to the hype, and many expect her to do just that. Coach Lindsay Gottlieb can, and should, give Watkins the keys to the car as they work to rebuild the Trojans into a West Coast (soon to be Big Ten?) powerhouse. Watkins will…

The Athletic has live coverage of Colorado’s move to the Big 12.

Colorado is planning to exit the Pac-12 to join the Big 12 in 2024, the school officially announced Thursday afternoon.

The university’s Board of Regents unanimously approved a resolution Thursday allowing Colorado to join the Big 12 effective for the 2024-25 academic year.

The Big 12’s board of presidents and chancellors had already voted unanimously on Wednesday night to accept Colorado as a member of the conference, a person familiar with the Big 12’s discussions confirmed to The Athletic.

The school would officially become a Big 12 member in the summer of 2024 at the conclusion of the Pac-12’s current media rights deal. With Colorado’s addition, the Big 12 would become a 13-member conference and the Pac-12 would be left with nine remaining schools.

It’s a significant achievement for Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark at the end of his first year leading the conference. USC and UCLA announced they would join the Big Ten one day after Yormark was hired last June. Since then, the Big 12 has aggressively pursued expansion candidates with a focus on adding Pac-12 members.

A statement from the Commissioner. pic.twitter.com/UtGgY5WnTf

— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) July 27, 2023

The yearlong…

At the end of May, Brett Yormark flew to West Virginia to convene the Big 12’s spring meetings. The commissioner and his presidents, chancellors and athletic directors gathered at the swanky Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs.

During that three-day session, the leaders had extensive discussions about their expansion options. They walked away aligned on a strategy. Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec went so far as to say he’d never seen greater unanimity among the Big 12’s board of directors.

“We have a plan,” Yormark said on June 2.

They all agreed on step one: Go get Colorado. And now they’ve pulled it off.

The Big 12 board met again for a conference call Wednesday night and voted unanimously to accept Colorado as a new member for 2024, a person familiar with the Big 12’s discussions confirmed to The Athletic. Colorado regents then met Thursday afternoon and unanimously approved a resolution to join the Big 12.

What, then, is step two for the Big 12?

The next move may not happen instantly. These processes are complex. But at this point, Yormark is not looking to stand pat at 13 members starting in 2024. He hasn’t been shy about acknowledging he prefers a 14-member league moving forward after Oklahoma and Texas exit for the SEC, and conference sources…

The Big 12 will play basketball, women’s soccer and baseball games in Mexico beginning in December 2024 and plans to explore creating a bowl game in Monterrey, it said Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:

• The games, which will begin with Kansas and Houston playing men’s and women’s basketball games in Mexico City’s Arena CDMX, are part of the conference’s “international extension” into Mexico.
• Big 12 women’s soccer and baseball teams will play exhibitions against clubs in the region, the Big 12 said.
• If the conference is successful in creating the bowl game, which the Big 12 says would begin in 2026, it would be the first bowl ever held in Mexico.

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

Why is the Big 12 making this move?

Commissioner Brett Yormark has been aggressive in exploring ways to increase the Big 12’s national relevance, including efforts to add new members, emphasizing the league’s basketball strength and trying to alter the league’s image into “younger, hipper, cooler.” Hosting events in Mexico is another creative way to expand the league’s brand to attract eyeballs and revenue. That the launch pits longtime men’s basketball power and four-time champion Kansas with Big 12 newcomer Houston, a resurgent program with rich history and recent…

The Big 12 will announce Thursday it is partnering with Rucker Park to launch a series of youth clinics featuring its head basketball coaches in Harlem this summer and hopes to host exhibition games on the famed playground court in 2024, a conference source told The Athletic.

The conference is aiming to host men’s and women’s exhibition games at Rucker Park in the summer of 2024, pending approval from the NCAA. The Big 12 will send men’s and women’s basketball coaches to New York City to lead the clinics for local sixth graders and younger this summer.

The conference will make the announcement in advance of Kansas State taking on Michigan State at Madison Square Garden in New York on Thursday for a spot in the Elite Eight. The Wildcats have four New York City natives on their team, led by point guard Markquis Nowell and forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who was CEO of the Brooklyn Nets from 2005 to 2019, is partnering with NYC Parks on the program. Yormark has said he’s determined to grow his league’s footprint to become a more national conference and embrace its status as arguably the top college basketball conference in the country.

“The strength of this conference in basketball, I think, is unrivaled,” Yormark said earlier this…

Last July, weeks after USC and UCLA’s stunning Big Ten announcement, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff made a bold realignment prediction: “No Pac-12 school is going to the Big 12.”

Eight months later, we may finally learn whether his confidence was justified or false bravado.

Kliavkoff is facing pressure to deliver a new media rights deal to his members by the end of the month. If the dollar figures or the details are underwhelming, March may be the moment when the Big 12 finally strikes. Sources briefed on the discussions say the conference has been in recent contact with the so-called Four Corners schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — which has renewed optimism that convincing them to join is possible.

Brett Yormark has eyed westward expansion since the day he was hired as the Big 12’s new commissioner last summer. Yormark has never been shy about his interest in expanding the Big 12 into the “fourth time zone” to establish a truly national conference and boost the value of his league’s media rights. The arrival of BYU this summer will get the Big 12 into the Mountain Time Zone. Yormark wants more, though he has always said any additions need to be additive and not dilutive.

“I don’t think any of us are trying to dismantle the…