We already have sponsored bowl games with company names being part of the bowl name in college football. Now the sport might go to a new realm which accelerates the rate and pervasiveness of commercialization in the sport: Corporate sponsors putting logos on playing fields. In the age of NIL and in a time when paying players is becoming increasingly more direct, schools and conferences want to be able to share revenues so that everyone gets a cut and — crucially — bidding wars between schools become less central in the acquisition and compensation of players. USA TODAY Sports has more on this:
College athletics directors are still absorbing the impacts and implications of the proposed settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust lawsuits that the NCAA and the Power Five conferences approved last week. But one industry leader already has a prediction about a couple of steps that schools will be able to pursue to help offset a presumptive $2.8 billion in damages and billions more in future payments to athletes.
“I believe the NCAA is going to allow us to put a sponsor logo on the field during the regular season,” Florida athletics director Scott Stricklin said Wednesday at the Southeastern Conference’s spring meetings in Miramar Beach, Florida. “That’s an obvious revenue stream that has not been there in the past.
Welcome to a new world of increased corporate involvement and visibility in college sports. It might be ugly or sad to watch, and it does mean the sport we grew up with no longer exists on many levels, but this is the reality of paying players and trying to create a more level playing field for everyone. This is part of what it will take to keep various schools, not just the big boys, in business.
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