Mid-Major Reacts Results: UNLV men’s basketball is worth $2-5 million

What would you do with $2-5 million?

Buy a reasonably priced home? Not in this market. What about paying off some debt? That’s a reasonable idea. Set aside a little to wager on some college football? Could win or lose yourself some money that way. (It is Vegas we’re talking about after all.) You could also buy roughly 2 million Mountain Dew Baja Blasts from Taco Bell if you are like me and love the Bell.

But, as one of our recent SB Nation Reacts Surveys will show, plenty of you would use that chunk of change to purchase the UNLV men’s basketball team that is TOTALLY NOT FOR SALE if you ask Josh Pastner (again).

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Forty percent of voters picked the $2-5 million range, which felt like a low-ball given how that is the going rate for some of college sport’s most coveted players. How much can one UNLV men’s basketball be worth? Possibly one whole Yaxel Lendeborg, apparently.

Thirty percent picked $10 million and up, which was what UNLV head coach Josh Pastner valued his team at when he jokingly said someone should buy the program, which started this fun hypothetical — one that feels all too possible with private equity and venture capital circling our beloved college sports.

While this idea was said in jest, there is a sliver of truth in Pastner’s words.

Private equity is merging with college athletics. What once was seen as a separation is coming to a head with new deals across the landscape. The University of Utah partnered with PE firm Otro Capital in late 2025. The Big 12 inked a deal with RedBird Capital Partners last April — the first deal of its kind between a college athletics conference and a PE firm — and more are likely coming as the dam has broken.

As Matt Brown found out earlier this year, there is a clear difference in PE firms aligning with a school vs. the conference itself. If the firm wants real estate, or “hard assets,” as Brown learned from some folks from a sports law firm, then investing and partnering with a school is the right choice.

So, that leads back to the UNLV men’s basketball team that totally isn’t for sale. If, hypothetically, we would see this idea through, the Thomas & Mack Center could be up for debate, the branding, the mascot, the entirety of UNLV Athletics even, if investors were serious and saw something to extract capital from.

Maybe Pastner isn’t so far-fetched with his idea.