Report: College football expected to approve legislation to allow uniforms to have sponsorship patches

Could NASCAR-style sponsorship patches be coming to college football? That’s one option that NCAA Division I commissioners are discussing during this week’s meetings in Chicago, according to Yahoo! Sports insider Ross Dellenger.

Dellenger reports legislation that would allow sponsorship patches to be added to college football jerseys as soon as next Fall could be approved soon, if commissioners can work out a disagreement over who will ultimately determine a standard for these jersey patches. The disagreement centers around whether individual schools, conferences, or the NCAA at large would be responsible for establishing a standard regarding both the type of approved sponsors and the number of patches on a given jersey.

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There appears to be strong feelings around restricting the total number of sponsorship patches on jerseys “to avoid overexposure.” That is similar to what most NASCAR race suits generally feature, per Dellenger.

While most jersey patches are still prohibited under current NCAA rules, Yahoo! Sports reported in December that college leaders were entertaining the idea of making a change to allow patches on football and men’s basketball jerseys. They could possibly even allow them on the uniforms of game officials.

In anticipation of such a move, college athletics multimedia rights giant Learfield even went so far as to plan an initiative called “Performance Partner Alliance” to help facilitate jersey patch solutions for its member colleges. In a day and age where college programs are now actively paying student-athletes through revenue-sharing and NIL, sponsorship patches could be quite lucrative.

Learfield president and CEO Cole Gahagan told Yahoo! Sports in December that estimates for jersey patches range widely. They could bring $500,000 annually for smaller brands to as much as $12 million for the top power conference programs, according to Dellenger.

“We’ve been at stagnation with arguably one of the most valuable aspects of college athletics — jersey patches,” Gahagan told Dellenger. “There is seemingly little to nothing anyone can do to actually get it moving. Activity has to start somewhere. We’ve got a responsibility to kick off that activity. The (apparel) performance partners are the first groups that you have to address. The NCAA is the other partner that must agree to this.”

Professional sports have been at the forefront of utilizing sponsorship patches, with NASCAR famously leading the way. NBA franchises have made between $10-20 million annually with sponsorship patches, according to figures provided by the sports marketing firm Wasserman.

“Any conversation that involves value creation for our members needs to be on the table and we need to be thoughtful about it,” Big 12 Commissioner Yormark told Dellenger in December. “These are opportunities to create value.”