Privately Owned FCS Playoffs?
Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2025 10:57 am
Very interesting. Could change the playoffs quite a bit.
https://herosports.com/fcs-sequence-equ ... yoff-bzbz/FCS commissioners heard a pitch this week in Chicago from an outside group looking to invest in and help operate the playoffs outside of the NCAA umbrella. HERO Sports first reported this pitch on Monday, the day before the meeting.
That outside group has been identified as an investment firm called Sequence Equity, first reported by Amanda Christovich.
The concept would be similar to the College Football Playoff business model, which is an LLC owned by FBS conferences plus Notre Dame that runs the FBS (CFP) national championship bracket outside of the NCAA postseason tournament umbrella. It handles revenue distribution, sponsorships, media rights, and operations.
In the pitch given to FCS commissioners, the new playoff system would be operated by a new private entity, which would be owned by FCS conferences while Sequence Equity takes a minority stake. Sequence Equity would reportedly inject tens of millions of dollars in investment into the playoffs.
HERO Sports reached out to Big Sky Commissioner Tom Wistrcill, who is the Collegiate Commissioners Association Vice President, before and after the meeting. Wistrcill agreed to speak with us on Friday after all of the commissioner meetings in Chicago concluded.
“You sit there with an open mind,” Wistrcill told us about how the meeting went. “You listen to lots of ideas, and your mind goes about 100 different directions with all of the various things at play. And it was very intriguing. It’s step one of a long process, but you have to take step one and have an open mind of different ideas. In this day and age with the financial pressures that our schools are under, we have to get creative in trying to find ways to help them out. And this is certainly worthy of our time to start exploring things like that.”
