The governing cabinet of US college sports body, the NCAA, has voted to approve the use of sponsorship patches in its Division 1 sports competitions, opening the door for increased commercialization in collegiate programs.
This new legislation, which will take effect on August 1, allows prominent college sports programs to feature as many as two jersey patch sponsors on team uniforms, each measuring no more than four square inches, in regular-season non-NCAA championship games (for example, conference games).
A single additional logo will be permitted on team equipment during pre-season and regular season competition, and one further patch on uniforms and apparel utilized in conference championship games.
Further rules will be instituted by the relevant NCAA subcommittees on how such rules will be applied for NCAA championship events, such as basketball’s annual March Madness, and further how the organization will legislate around sponsor clashes with existing NCAA partners.
Speaking on the announcement, NCAA Division 1 cabinet chair Josh Whitman, the athletics director at Illinois University, commented: “College sports are in an exciting new era of increased financial benefits for student-athletes, and the cabinet's vote today reflects the ongoing commitment of Division I members to drive additional revenues and fully fund those benefits.
"This also continues the NCAA's efforts to expand flexibility in areas of NCAA rules, thereby allowing schools and conferences to set standards that reflect their values and serve their unique needs. This important policy change is another step forward in advancing that philosophy and providing members with increased flexibility."
This ruling opens up yet another revenue stream for the burgeoning commercial business of college athletics, which has rapidly expanded in recent years since the NCAA adopted guidelines allowing for the payment of players on a name, image, and likeness (NIL) basis.
Since then, NIL money has ballooned, allowing universities to effectively bid for prospective players.
The Indiana Hoosiers college football team, for example, has been a major beneficiary of this, receiving millions of dollars in donations from alumni Mark Cuban.
Beyond several seven-figure donations to the university’s sports programs, Cuban has also been a major NIL backer of the team since 2024, coinciding with a boom period for its college football team that culminated in a College Football Playoff National Championship win last week.
With that money, which is funneled into a third-party organization that serves as a vehicle for player sponsorship deals, college programs can recruit top high school athletes (and other transferring college players) with sponsorship income that in many cases eclipses what they may earn as rookies in the NFL.
With the avenue of sponsorship patches now open to college programs, that only expands the number of revenue streams these schools may utilize to attract top talent, with the biggest beneficiaries likely to be the iconic and historically successful football and basketball schools such as Notre Dame, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Georgia, University of Miami, and Brigham Young University, all of which boast strong viewership draws thanks to their strong histories and notable fanbases that can be leveraged into high-value jersey patch deals.
Given the appetite for US college sports, which in many cases eclipses that of the US major leagues of some sports, it remains to be seen how this could affect the sponsorship markets of some competitions, which will now have a wide-ranging sporting behemoth like the NCAA Division 1 system (which boasts more than 350 schools) to compete with.
