The $17 million and $18 million price tags for jersey patch deals announced this week by Ohio State and Notre Dame, respectively, surprised some sports advertising sellers—but only slightly.
Two sources who handle multimedia rights negotiations for colleges (but who did not broker either of the aforementioned deals) told Front Office Sports they had pinned Ohio State as the school that would fetch top dollar for its jersey patch sponsorship, though they anticipated a value “closer to $25 million.” Meanwhile, the $18 million Notre Dame brought in “was a little bit more than [we] would have projected,” one of the sources said, especially considering the Fighting Irish do not offer any branding opportunities in their football stadium.
Still, the sources FOS spoke with emphasized that the figures weren’t wildly unexpected and that only a handful of the schools yet to announce deals could command similar value—a view echoed by other industry executives.
“I think the market has now been set,” said Jason Miller, EVP of commercial revenue and head of properties for Excel Sports Management, an agency that has negotiated more than 25 jersey patch deals across professional sports. “A few deals have trickled in over the last few months, but everybody has really been waiting for a big shoe to drop. With Ohio State and Notre Dame this week, that’s now happened. I don’t expect there to be a deal that significantly outpaces those two schools.”
