Notre Dame is about to put a sponsored patch on its jerseys, and the move says a lot about where college sports are headed.
Starting in 2026-27, SoFi will appear on Fighting Irish uniforms across every sport in a six-year agreement that industry experts value in the nine-figure range. It’s the biggest announced deal of its kind in college sports history, and Notre Dame is treating it as a practical step, not a surrender.
“We wanted to do this in the Notre Dame style of doing things,” Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua tells Sports Illustrated. “Think of the 2024 season [when the Irish advanced to the College Football Playoff title game], we had patches on our jerseys almost 25% of the time with all the bowl games. We’ve crossed that Rubicon.
“But this relationship with SoFi isn’t just a patch on the jersey. It’s about helping all our student-athletes.”
That’s the heart of the deal. Notre Dame gets another revenue stream at a time when athletic departments are scrambling to cover rising costs, and SoFi gets a premium spot on one of the sport’s most recognizable brands.
The school’s gold helmets, blue home jerseys, road whites and gold pants stay intact. Notre Dame also continues without on-field advertising, so the playing surface itself remains clean.
SoFi has already made a big imprint in sports marketing, with naming rights to the stadium in Los Angeles where the Rams and Chargers play, plus roles as the official banking partner of the NBA and USA Basketball. Notre Dame, with its NBC broadcast setup and national fan base, fits the company’s reach.
“As a brand themselves, they’re in a class of one,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto tells SI, citing Notre Dame’s unique NBC broadcast agreement and nationwide fan base. “Their positioning gives them maximum national reach, with millions of unique viewers for every game.
“Our hope [with SoFi Stadium naming rights] was to be on the most ambitious stage in the world. Notre Dame has the most ambitious athletic department in the world. It’s a university I’ve admired my entire life.”
Noto, a standout linebacker at Army in the late 1980s and early ’90s, is also the father of several current and former college athletes. Bevacqua said the “purity of Notre Dame Stadium was very appealing to SoFi,” pointing to the fact that the only commercial logos inside the stadium are for NBC and Peacock.
The school also says the partnership lines up with its “4 For Forever” program, which supports athletes through education, community and professional development during and after their time in uniform.
“We love the fact that they bought into our commitment to an authentic student-athlete experience,” Bevacqua says. “It’s a commitment from Notre Dame to you for your lifetime. Part of that is financial literacy, and SoFi is going to be really invested in helping our student-athletes in that area.”
The deal also includes a one-year, full-tuition scholarship for one male and one female walk-on athlete “who exemplify ambition, resilience, leadership and service.”
Notre Dame is hardly alone in this space. Ohio State announced a major JPMorganChase patch deal on Tuesday, and other schools with jersey patch agreements include Arkansas, BYU, Illinois, Kansas, LSU, Michigan State, Oklahoma State and California.
And the trend is only going to keep growing. The NCAA’s business model has already been ruled illegal, which opened the door to the House v.
NCAA settlement and direct payments to athletes by universities. But the money required to keep rosters together and keep recruiting at a high level has quickly outpaced the settlement-era limits.
A $21.3 million salary cap for an entire athletic department is not enough to fully cover the costs of chasing a College Football Playoff bid. Retention costs are up.
Acquisition costs are up. The price of signing freshmen is up.
That’s why athletic departments are being pushed to find every available dollar, including sponsorships. Notre Dame’s patch deal is the biggest yet, and it gives the school another way to stay aggressive in a system that has changed fast.
So when the first preseason video shows “SoFi” on the uniforms, or when the Irish take the field at Lambeau Field on Sept. 6 against Wisconsin, or at home six days later against Rice, there’s no need to panic. This is what modern college athletics looks like now.
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Notre Dame Faces The Uniform Compromise Irish Fans Always Feared
The latest reminder that college footballs uniform real estate is getting more expensive came out of Columbus, where Ohio State unveiled a new patch sponsorship that will bring in roughly $17 million a year and fold in extra benefits for its athletes, including NIL opportunities and financial literacy resources. It is the kind of deal that would have seemed far-fetched not long ago, but it fits a growing pattern across Division I, where schools are increasingly turning jerseys into another revenue stream.
For Notre Dame, the concern is less about what happened elsewhere than about how long it can stay above the fray. The Irish have long sold themselves as different, with tradition and aesthetics carrying real weight in the programs identity, yet the pressure to keep pace with the sports financial arms race only keeps building. Every new patch agreement around the country makes the same question harder to avoid: how long can Notre Dame resist before the marketplace starts asking for its own compromise? [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Just Took A Major Step That Will Test Tradition
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The bigger significance may be what the deal is designed to support. Notre Dame says the partnership will help power its 4 For Forever program, with money aimed at scholarships, financial education and career development, a reminder that the modern college sports marketplace is now shaping everything from branding to postgraduation preparation. For a program that has always guarded its traditions closely, the next question is how far it is willing to go in adapting to this new era. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Just Got A Playoff Prediction That Will Fire Up Fans
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The bracket gets even more intriguing from there, with Crawford sending Notre Dame all the way to the title game against Oregon. It is the kind of early projection that stirs up Irish fans because it suggests a path back to the biggest stage, even if the forecast ultimately has Oregon finishing the job and claiming the championship in a season that figures to be wide open. [Read more 🡒]