Private equity is coming to college sports, NCAA president Charlie Baker told me during last week's Axios BFD event in New York.

Why it matters: College sports is a massive industry undergoing changes akin to allowing the forward pass or replacing peach baskets with netting.

• That makes it a greenfield opportunity for private equity, which already has hooks in almost every other part of the American economy.

State of play: The NCAA recently reached a settlement on a class-action lawsuit which will allow certain schools to directly pay their student-athletes, with each school's initial pool estimated to be just over $20 million.

• Baker hopes these payments will reduce the influence of "collectives" that use NIL rights as shallow cover for pay-to-play deals (which aren't technically allowed).
• But that's likely wishful thinking, particularly since Title IX may limit the amount of direct payments to football players, which is where the vast majority of collective cash is directed.

Zoom in: Either way, few collegiate athletic departments have in-house capabilities to manage their new responsibilities.

• That's why RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital recently launched Collegiate Athletic Solutions, which wants to provide capital and operational expertise to schools, in exchange for a cut of ancillary revenue.
• Expect other spins on this idea, including via equity stake sales.
• Elsewhere, CVC Capital Partners reportedly is in talks to acquire a minority stake in the Big 12 conference for upwards of $1 billion. And Sixth Street has discussed investment options with Florida State.
• Finally, there's the possibility of private equity supercharging the collectives and/or sponsoring specific athletes for a piece of their future earnings. Although Baker would almost certainly cringe at both.

What Baker said, when I asked if PE has a role to play in college sports:

• "I think the answer is yes. ... When I think about private equity, and I worked at General Catalyst for a while, it's usually a three-to-five-year window. ... Colleges make decisions in a much broader time frame than that; they're usually thinking 10 to 20 years. The question would be you have to figure out on your table of risk and resources how to make a private equity piece fit into a model that's not used to being designed to deliver returns in three years or five years."

Comcast is weighing a spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable networks, company president Mike Cavanagh told investors yesterday.

Why it's the BFD: This would be one of America's largest cable TV providers cutting its own cord, in part to focus more on streaming.

Details: Comcast's cable portfolio includes CNBC, Bravo, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, and USA Networks.

• NBC's broadcast network would not be part of a spinout.

Look ahead: Don't be surprised if private equity or strategics begin kicking tires, even though Cavanagh talked about forming a separate, publicly traded company.

The bottom line: "Comcast's peers have similarly weighed separating or divesting their linear assets, but none have actually made the move." — Sara Fischer, Axios

• Insider, a Turkish marketing platform, raised $500m in Series E funding led by General Atlantic. axios.link/4f7u8nk

• Noma, an Israeli cybersecurity startup focused on AI apps, raised $32m in Series A funding led by Ballistic Ventures. axios.link/3C7vwYK

⚡ Glow, a provider of DeFi solar incentive programs, raised $30m co-led by Framework Ventures and Union Square Ventures. axios.link/3UrU3OA

• Third Wave Automation, a Union City, Calif., maker of autonomous forklifts, raised $27m in Series C funding. Woven Capital led, and was joined by Innovation Endeavors, Norwest Venture Partners, and Qualcomm Ventures. axios.link/48tLrMV

• Decart, an Israeli developer of a playable "open-world" AI model, raised $21m. Sequoia Capital led, and was joined by Zeev Ventures. axios.link/4ee8YCV

🌎 Matter Intelligence, an LA-based Earth observation startup, raised $12m in seed funding. Lowercarbon Capital led, and was joined by Toyota Ventures, Pear, Mark Cuban, and E2MC. axios.link/3C9fCNy

• Tola, an SMB-focused cashflow management startup, raised $10.2m in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital, per Axios Pro. axios.link/3YLRidt

• Databento, a Salt Lake City financial data startup, raised $10m in Series A extension funding from Belvedere Trading, Clear Street, and Lightscape Partners. axios.link/40r7rpZ

• MealMe, an API for embedding food and retail ordering into other apps, raised $8m in Series A funding. Mercury Fund led, and was joined by insiders Gaingels and Palm Drive Capital. axios.link/3YKPjpL

• Kuberno, a London-based provider of legal entity management SaaS, raised £6m in Series A extension funding from Nasdaq Ventures and Barclays. kuberno.com

⚡ Crew Carbon, a Brooklyn developer of carbon capture tech for wastewater treatment plants, raised $5.3m in seed funding. Counteract led, and was joined by ReGen Ventures, Animo, Connecticut Innovations, Ponderosa Ventures, Newlab, Echo River Capital, and the Carbon Drawdown Initiative. axios.link/4eX4QbD

• Nitro Labs, a developer of a Solana-scaling infrastructure platform, raised $4m in seed funding led by Lemniscap, with participation from Animoca Ventures, Borderless Capital, Finality Capital, Race Capital, and No Limit Holdings. axios.link/3CjgvTu

• Afference, a Boulder, Colo., developer of neural interface tech, raised $3.5m in seed funding from Hannah Grey VC, Konvoy, and Samsung Next. afference.io

• Battery Ventures bought a majority stake in QSR Automations, a Louisville, Ky.-based provider of restaurant tech. qsrautomations.com

• BC Credit Partners agreed to buy Runway Growth Capital, a Chicago-based provider of growth loans. axios.link/4fjHCwa

• EQT acquired PageUp Group, a provider of HR software, from Battery Ventures. pageuppeople.com

🚑 Gridiron Capital invested in Montvale, N.J., health-care marketing firm Health Monitor Network. healthmonitornetwork.com

• Percheron Capital launched Right Restoration Partners, an Atlanta-based acquisition platform for emergency restoration services businesses. rightrestorationpartners.com

• Presidio Investors acquired LA-based creative talent firm The Only Agency. theonly.agency

🚑 Rural Healthcare Group, backed by Kinderhook Industries, closed its $245m acquisition of Steward Medical Group and Steward Health Care Network. axios.link/3A8YZRy

• Serent Capital invested in Finys, a Troy, Mich., provider of core insurance software. finys.co

• Autodoc, a German online auto-parts dealer backed by Apollo Global Management, picked banks for a revived Frankfurt IPO, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3CaHpgA

🚑 Oura, a Finnish wearables company that's raised $700m from VCs, acquired Menlo Park, Calif.-based movement data tracker Sparta Science, which had raised around $80m from firms like Arsenal Growth, Playground Global, and GSR Ventures. axios.link/40tkAik

• Berkshire Hathaway increased its stake in Sirius XM (Nasdaq: SIRI) to 33.2%. axios.link/3Ux59BG

⚡ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) agreed to sell most of its Vaca Muerta shale patch assets to Argentina's Pluspetrol, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3NMrUhg

• TheSoul Publishing, a digital media publisher, acquired a majority stake in Mediacube, a provider of financial products and support to creators. axios.link/3AtUkcM

• Hyperplane VC of Boston is raising up to $100m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Listen Ventures of Chicago is raising up to $75m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Riot Ventures is raising up to $150m for its third fund, per an SEC filing.

• Sango Capital, a South African private equity firm, is raising up to $300m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Theory Ventures, an early-stage software investor, is raising up to $450m for its second fund, per an SEC filing.

• Leia Galasso joined Lowenstein Sandler as a partner in the law firm's emerging companies and VC practice. She previously was with Buhler Duggal & Henry. axios.link/4f3V6MU

• Rumesh Rajendram joined JPMorgan Chase as head of EMEA consumer and retail M&A, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4foIn6Z

• Frank Su stepped down as head of Asia private equity for CPP Investments, per PE International. axios.link/4hxfcAS

The U.S. economy added just 12,000 jobs in October, well below estimates, while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1%. Go deeper.