The Athletic's Chris Vannini deemed rapper Pitbull "a college football Robin Hood" for taking money from the SEC for a Texas event celebrating the Longhorns joining the conference -- for a grand total of $2.3 million -- and redistributing $1.2 million of it to Conference USA's FIU for the naming rights to FIU stadium for the next five years.
Of course, the SEC got what they paid for in Pitbull's appearance at Texas's welcome-to-the-SEC event. But his involvement with FIU does move the needle for the Panthers in a meaningful way, using the funds from one of the richest schools in the country in the second-highest revenue-grossing conference as of 2023.
Per Vannini, Pitbull well be the "Official entrepreneur of FIU athletics," create a new anthem for the team, he'll get to use the stadium up to 10 days per year and two suites for all football games, and he'll have an artist of his choice to perform at games.
What was previously a program lost in the mix in Conference USA after the additions of Liberty and Jacksonville State to the conference is now perhaps C-USA's most notable brand with the addition of Pitbull. He won't steal SEC viewers from Georgia-Alabama or Texas-Texas A&M for his Panthers, but it's plausible that he can steal viewership from the Vanderbilts and South Carolinas certain weeks.
Pitbull a symbol of changes coming to college football
Change in college football has been accelerated since the dawn of NIL, but the expansion of the College Football Playoff, the Big Ten, the SEC, and the Big 12 has brought in even more money, and thus, there's been even more changes.
Pitbull represents fun change. Private equity investing big money into conferences will represent the opposite.
But it's two sides of the same coin. Outside influence is here to stay in college football. And tradition is set to suffer, and wither away in many cases, because of it.