Latest news with #revenuegeneration
Entrepreneur
2 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
What You Need to Know Before You Sign Another Contract
From managing risk to maximizing revenue, standardized sales contracts are a strategic tool that helps create efficiencies and collaboration between sales and legal departments. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. For growing companies, especially those navigating long-term service contracts, standardized sales contracts are more than paperwork ... they're a strategic tool for managing risk and maximizing revenue. Yet many organizations still suffer from costly inconsistencies, miscommunication between teams and untracked contract terms that result in lost income and avoidable legal exposure. Gone are the days of contracts scribbled on napkins. Modern contract management relies on formal processes and documentation. Here are some insights for a proactive approach to contract standardization, starting with bridging the gap between the sales and legal teams. Related: 5 Simple, Proven Ways to Improve Contract Management 1. Contracts are risk management and revenue tools At their core, contracts are commitments. That means they're just as much about risk management as they are about revenue generation. If your sales team over-promises — perhaps offering more services than your team can deliver or ignoring necessary protections like indemnification clauses — they could expose your business to legal liability or reputational harm. On the revenue side, failing to include pricing escalators in multi-year contracts or not tracking tiered pricing models accurately can leave serious money on the table. In my experience, a contract without proper safeguards and missing price escalators is a legal minefield fraught with exposure for an entire organization from sales to legal operations. Key takeaway: You must know what's in the contract and ensure the whole organization knows it, too. 2. Cross-team visibility prevents pitfalls One of the biggest pain points in many organizations is a lack of inter-departmental communication. The sales team might know a contract was signed, but legal, finance or operations may not understand the terms the sales team and client agreed to. Without standardized language and a clear handoff process, your business risks: Missed automatic price increases Non-compliance with service level agreements Poor customer experience due to internal misalignment Best practice: Make the contract visible and actionable across departments, not just sales and legal, but also finance, customer success and operations. 3. Technology enables contract lifecycle management (CLM) Platforms like Salesforce, when integrated with CLM tools, can streamline contract creation, negotiation, approval and execution. With the right setup: Salespeople can pull up the most up-to-date, approved templates Any clause edits or exceptions trigger automatic notifications to legal for review and approval Clause libraries ensure that common provisions, like indemnification, are standardized Legal doesn't need to review every deal from scratch This reduces friction for sales reps eager to close a deal while ensuring legal safeguards for the organization at large remain intact. Related: 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Client Contracts 4. Create incentives for legal-sales collaboration Salespeople's primary function within an organization is to generate revenue and drive business growth, but that shouldn't come at the expense of your company's legal position. By incentivizing collaboration with legal, you can turn contract compliance into a shared goal. Ideas to consider: Tie part of commissions to contract accuracy and compliance with certain legal mandates. Provide legal-approved "talking points" to the sales team to address clients' questions or attempts to negotiate key provisions. Offer training so the salesperson or team understands the rationale behind key clauses (e.g., indemnification from all but gross negligence) Ensure accessibility of legal team to provide timely support to sales team. This builds a culture of shared accountability, rather than bottlenecks or blame. 5. Give your team the right language Legal teams can empower sales by equipping them with scripts and tools to handle tough conversations. For example, if a client's attorney wants to revise an indemnity clause, sales should be prepared with: A clear explanation of why the clause exists A summary of what flexibility, if any, is allowed Guidance on when to escalate to legal Idea: Require your legal department to create standardized messaging for sales reps so they can confidently represent the organization's position without overstepping. Related: Do You Know Where Your Contracts Are Standardizing contracts isn't just about reducing paperwork; it's about creating sustainable growth. When contracts are uniform, enforceable and visible across your organization, you're better positioned to avoid risk, capture full revenue and scale smoothly. If you're still relying on ad hoc contract editing and siloed communication, it's time to rethink the process. The return on investment for collaboration between sales and legal isn't just compliance; it's peace of mind and profit.
Forbes
09-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Elevate Raises $500 Million To Invest In College Athletics Departments
Elevate, a sports and entertainment consulting company, has raised $500 million to invest in college athletics departments and help them maximize revenue as their operating expenses significantly increase due to being allowed for the first time to directly pay players. Velocity Capital Management and the Texas Permanent School Fund Corp., which own equity stakes in Elevate, are providing the capital. Velocity Capital is a private equity firm that focuses on the sports, entertainment and media industries, while Texas Permanent is a sovereign wealth fund. Jonathan Marks, the chief business officer of Elevate's colleges division, said the company through what it's calling the College Investment Initiative will provide athletics departments with money that will primarily be used to renovate, upgrade, expand or build stadiums and other facilities. The investments will be structured similar to debt instead of an equity stake, meaning Elevate will not have an ownership interest in the athletics departments but rather provide the money upfront and then get paid back over time, usually anywhere from two to 10 years, according to Marks. Elevate will also receive a share of revenue that the colleges generate after the company recoups its initial investment. Elevate's College Investment Initiative is an alternative to traditional financing such as obtaining a loan from a bank, issuing bonds or raising money from wealthy alums or donors. Its public announcement comes after a federal judge late Friday approved the terms of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement, commonly referred to as the House settlement, that will see schools being allowed starting in the upcoming 2025-26 school year to share up to about $20.5 million with their athletes. The amount that schools can give their athletes will increase 4% each year. Marks said that Elevate is 'going to provide capital in a way that doesn't take a long-term equity stake from a school. We're not looking to take an equity stake and then sell it down the road. We're going to provide capital and then also partner with the schools to help them maximize the return on that capital.' Elevate will have competition in the field. For instance, private equity firms RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital in May 2024 announced Collegiate Athletic Solutions (CAS), which will also invest in college athletic departments but will not take equity stakes, either. CAS has not publicly disclosed any deals it has struck. Meanwhile, Elevate has agreed to deals with two colleges in the Power Four conferences of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern Conference. Marks would not disclose the names of the schools, but he said the investments are in the low-eight figures meaning more than $10 million apiece. He added that Elevate is in discussions with several other athletics departments and that he would 'be shocked if we're not halfway through that $500 million in the next two to three months.' He said Elevate could possibly invest more than $500 million, too. Elevate already works with about 70 colleges in several areas, including helping them with their primary and secondary ticketing, hospitality, suite and sponsorship sales, designing their stadiums, club areas and other facilities and striking deals with brands. For instance, Elevate last August announced a deal with Penn State where it will help the school with ticketing, fan engagement and premium seating experiences for the $700 million renovation of the University's football stadium. And last month, Elevate disclosed that it would help UCLA with ticket sales across all sports and market the premium seating at the Rose Bowl Stadium, which is undergoing an $80 million renovation. The company in January also acquired Bowlsby Sports Advisors, a search firm that helps colleges hire athletic directors, coaches and other key personnel. Marks said Elevate's College Investment Initiative is a natural extension of the business considering how college athletics has changed in recent years. In 2021, athletes were allowed for the first time to earn money based on their Name, Image and Likeness, with those payments being raised through outside collectives and boosters and companies rather than the schools themselves. Now, with the passage of the House settlement, schools will be directly paying players and focusing even more on having their athletics departments make money. 'You are seeing every single conversation (with college athletics officials) discuss how we can generate more revenue,' Marks said. 'We're having these conversations on a daily basis and talking with schools on what they can do. Can they generate more revenue from the current assets they have? Can they invest some capital in the current assets, whether it's the own capital that they have on their balance sheet or outside capital such as ours to ultimately draw higher revenue on a long-term basis and (generate) sustainable revenue?' Marks said schools can use the money they receive from Elevate at their own discretion, but that it 'makes the most sense for schools and Universities to utilize it to drive long-term sustainable revenue growth,' particularly through upgrading or building facilities where Elevate can help in areas such as determining the optimal amount of premium seating and the best ways to price tickets, concessions and other items fans can buy. If schools decide to use the capital for other means, Marks said Elevate will likely 'securitize it by ticket sales or other revenue streams to make sure that if we're giving them, say, $50 million, the payback of that can be supported.' Marks also said Elevate has told colleges that 'it doesn't make sense to take capital unless you're actually going to put it to use right now. Don't take $50 million if you might not need it for two years. But let's take $10 million now if you need it right now, and then you can take $40 million next year….We just want to make sure they're maximizing the value of that capital versus having it sit on their balance sheet in a money market fund.' Elevate was formed in January 2018 by the San Francisco 49ers, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and Creative Arts Agency. The company at first primarily focused on North American professional sports before expanding its colleges presence in 2021 with the acquisition of Dynamic Pricing Partners, which Marks founded. Al Guido, Elevate's chairman and CEO and the 49ers president, said that Elevate has discussed providing capital to college athletic departments for about a year. He spoke with Velocity managing partner David Abrams, the former chief investment officer at Harris Blitzer, as well as others on Elevate's board of directors. They decided that now is the best opportunity with billions of dollars of infrastructure projects planned on college campuses and Elevate's existing relationships with athletics departments as well as its deep-pocked investors. Elevate's ownership group includes the 49ers, Velocity, Harris Blitzer, investment firm Arctos Partners and Levy, a leading hospitality company. Guido noted that Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group and former part-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, said in December that his company was bidding to acquire majority stakes in college sports teams. However, Elevate does not plan on taking equity stakes in college teams or athletics departments. 'That is not our initiative, that is not our goal here,' Guido said. 'We are a service provider that believes we can help Universities in their ambitions and initiatives to drive revenue and fan experiences on their campuses…If they're looking for creative ways to capitalize these projects, and they're making sure that whoever that partner is also brings services to bear that help them in that regard, that's where we come in.'
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Vanderbilt, inspired by soccer's Premier League, trying to get ahead of revenue curve
Notre Dame's athletic director previously served as the chairman of NBC Sports. The University of Kentucky recently became the first school to convert its athletic department to a limited-liability holding company, Champions Blue LLC, which the school said will allow it to find new revenue 'through public-private partnerships and potentially other transactions, such as real estate.' Advertisement These are two examples Vanderbilt chancellor Daniel Diermeier gave Wednesday in explaining his school's creation of a strategic initiative called Vanderbilt Enterprises, with longtime hospitality industry leader Markus Schreyer hired as CEO. The professionalization of college athletics goes well beyond athlete compensation. Vanderbilt is the latest, but won't be the last, school to take a creative approach. But Diermeier's real inspiration wasn't too far from where he was speaking Wednesday, in London, before hosting an event for Vanderbilt donors. He studied several professional sports franchises, some in the Premier League in England, including Manchester City FC. 'Manchester City built next to its stadium the second-largest concert venue in the United Kingdom, the biggest one outside London, so you can have concerts there and create a whole kind of weekend there for people going to a Manchester City game,' Diermeier said of a complex that also includes a hotel, museum and fan zone. 'Well, we don't have to build a concert venue. We're in Nashville.' This is not the first time a Vanderbilt official has mentioned the idea of capitalizing on the tourism haven that bustles just outside the walls of the university. But this is the first time such words have been accompanied by actual strategy and investment. The idea, Diermeier said, is for Vanderbilt athletics to be part of the equation for tourists. And visitors who are in town for business conferences. And young families and young professionals who aren't necessarily alums or longtime fans. As Vanderbilt Enterprises CEO, Schreyer will essentially be 'chief revenue officer' for Vandy athletics, Diermeier said, and the hospitality background is key. 'How does it translate into resources? How can you enhance the fan experience?' Diermeier said. 'If you run a hotel or a type of event venue, or anything on the hospitality side, you want to create new experiences and new value for people, just like they do at Disney or the Grand Ole Opry.' Advertisement The timing relates to upheaval in college athletics, with schools preparing to share millions in revenue directly with athletes as terms of a lawsuit settlement that could be approved any day. Diermeier compared this time period to the late 1970s in the airline industry, after federal deregulation dropped prices, allowed upstart brands to emerge and actually helped the industry flourish despite doomsday predictions. 'Everybody has to get ready for the new world, and you have to set aside all paradigms and develop new ideas,' he said. 'It's going to be an era where disruption will be needed and will be rewarded.' The timing also coincides with a strengthening of the Vanderbilt product to embolden such pursuits. 'Beating Alabama and whole goalpost thing? That didn't hurt,' Diermeier said of a 2024 football win that ranks among the greatest in school history. In five years under Diermeier and athletic director Candice Lee, hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised, facilities have been transformed and the most important teams have gained momentum. The 2024-25 school year has a case as the best in modern history — the Bama-beating football team won a bowl game and both basketball teams made the NCAA Tournament — especially if Tim Corbin's baseball team can make a big run in the next few weeks. Lee celebrated her fifth anniversary on Wednesday and was one of five finalists for Athletic Director of the Year, given at the Sports Business Awards in New York. Tennessee's Danny White won the award. Lee was previously named Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics. 'If you're the AD of Vanderbilt, all you have ever wanted is for the university to strategically invest in athletics,' said Lee, who wasn't able to attend the awards ceremony because of a recent knee surgery. 'In my five years (as AD), I've had that. This chancellor, everything he's said we're going to do, we've done. Every single thing I've asked Daniel Diermeier for, he has said yes.' Advertisement Vanderbilt has unique challenges and advantages. But finding new revenue streams, thinking more like pro franchises and riding through inevitable industry storms ahead are widespread experiences. 'I do think this can be a trailblazing model,' Lee said. 'But everyone's going to have their own way of doing it.'
