NCAA Committee Proposes Jersey Sponsorships In College Football

By: Lucas Delgado

November 2, 2025

Photo Credit: Scott Kinser / AP

Given all of the rapid developments in NIL rights and playoff expansion, it feels like the phrase “the landscape of college football is changing” has been repeated ad nauseam. It’s with reason, as these changes do signal a larger shift away from the idealized vision of college football as an amateur sport and more towards it being a business. But as these two changes have been cemented as staples in current college football, a new point of discussion has risen. It concerns a development that, all things considered, is still fairly new to professional sports in the United States. The development in question - on-field and jersey sponsorships.

It started about two months before the 2024 college football season, where the NCAA approved a proposal to allow teams to put three sponsor logos on the field during games. This includes one logo at the 50 yard line, along with two smaller logos elsewhere on the field with most teams choosing to put them opposite their conference logo at the 25 yard line. At the time of the policy’s establishment, industry experts were predicting that it could yield annual revenue increases anywhere from the mid hundred thousands to $3 million for schools.

In the same Sports Business Journal article that broke the news regarding on-field sponsors, author Ben Portnoy said that “It also remains to be seen whether the NCAA will consider jersey patch advertisements.” Fittingly, that seems to be the next direction in college football’s monetization discussion. Earlier this month, an NCAA subcommittee proposed a change to current rules that would allow teams to add two sponsorship patches on jerseys and pregame or postgame apparel. Traditionally, the only patch teams would be allowed to have on equipment is that of the apparel manufacturer.

These decisions seem to be motivated by a desire of athletic departments to combat their future losses in regards to new player compensation policies. As a result of the House v. NCAA settlement, schools can now directly pay athletes up to $20.5 million in athletic department revenue. Many schools see this landmark ruling as causing a snowball effect where they’ll need to maximize their player compensation to field the most competitive teams, but this will, in turn, lead to short term losses. The sponsorship route in particular seems to be a great vehicle for this, as evidenced by its recent adoption and success in other major sports. Within the last decade, the NBA, NHL, and MLB have all started allowing teams to implement sponsor patches on jerseys. In the 2024 MLB season - only the second to include jersey sponsors - it was reported that the 23 teams with patches generated $204 million in revenue from the ads.

It is expected that a final proposal for this jersey sponsorship policy will be voted on in January and will go into effect before the 2026 college football season, and its supporters are optimistic that it will pass that vote. One such supporter is Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen, who said, “It’ll come, and it should come… As part of the NCAA modernizing its rules, it’s overdue.” This isn’t to say there are no complications, though, as major apparel providers like Nike and Adidas currently don’t allow other corporate sponsors on their college sports jerseys. However, conversations are already being held to pull back those restrictions, so that if the NCAA accepts this proposal, college sports will have access to another revenue stream.