Sponsored jersey patches are about to become part of the college football landscape, and Oklahoma is almost certainly next in line.
Ohio State and Notre Dame just set the market on Tuesday with massive corporate partnerships that put a logo on their iconic jerseys and, more importantly, send real money into their athletic departments. Ohio State’s deal with JPMorganChase is worth $17 million annually, while Notre Dame’s agreement with SoFi Technologies climbs to as much as $20 million per year. Both deals cover all sports, but football is expected to get the biggest share of the benefit.
The immediate reaction has been predictable: plenty of disgust, plenty of hand-wringing, plenty of complaints that college football is turning into a billboard. And sure, the visual is going to take some getting used to.
A patch that doesn’t match the school colors will look strange at first, especially when athletes are already wearing logos for their sponsor, conference, school, apparel brand and maybe even the NCAA or College Football Playoff. It could look like a NASCAR uniform before everyone adjusts.
But that’s the point. Ugly doesn’t automatically mean useless.
The money these deals can generate is too big to ignore, and Oklahoma has every reason to jump into the same pool. The Sooners’ crimson and cream jerseys are almost certain to carry a sponsor patch soon, maybe even by this coming football season. Like general managers and transfer portals, it’s another college sports change that would have sounded absurd a decade ago and now feels inevitable.
The financial pressure is real. Athletic departments are more expensive than ever, and now schools have to fund student-athletes on payroll while still keeping up with facilities and everything else it takes to stay competitive. College football has a roster cap for revenue share of about $21 million, but anyone who listens to coaches talk knows rosters still cost more than that.
Oklahoma is in a strong position to cash in. It’s a blue-blood program with an athletic department that’s even more successful than Ohio State and Notre Dame, and the interlocking O and U is one of the most recognizable marks in the country. That gives the Sooners leverage to chase a deal that could be just as lucrative as the ones announced Tuesday, if not bigger.
Even if Oklahoma doesn’t top Notre Dame’s number, a figure of at least $15 million a year would be a reasonable expectation. Athletic director Roger Denny now has Ohio State and Notre Dame’s contracts to point to in negotiations.
And once you start mapping out what that money can do, the patch starts looking a lot less offensive. If roughly $10 million of it went to Brent Venables and general manager Jim Nagy for roster building, that would essentially cover a starting offensive line. Most fans would take an ugly logo over a quarterback getting sacked.
Maybe it means another million for Patty Gasso, too. That’s the kind of extra edge Sooners fans have been saying the program needed this past season.
This is one more college sports change that plenty of people will hate on sight. In some ways, they’ll be right. But winning is still the currency that matters most, and Oklahoma fans should start preparing now for a sponsor patch on crimson jerseys - and for the day they stop noticing it.
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