The NCAA said it will consider a proposal next Thursday that would bring corporate sponsorships to football fields and jerseys following last week’s revenue-sharing settlement that ended three antitrust lawsuits against the organization.
Current NCAA rules permit the use of logos at bowl games, sponsored neutral sites, and fields where companies already own naming rights. Adding jersey patches next season could reportedly generate $5 million in the SEC alone, with another $1 million expected from 25-yard line sponsorships.
“I believe the NCAA is going to allow us to put a sponsor logo on the field during the regular season,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said Wednesday at SEC spring meetings. “That’s an obvious revenue stream that has not been there in the past. The pro sports are putting patches on jerseys. That doesn’t seem like something that’s crazy for us to consider these days.”
Sponsored NCAA swim caps won’t create as much revenue as brand partnerships in football and basketball, of course, but they could be coming in the near future if the organization moves forward with the proposal.
The NCAA rules committee will be meeting next week to discuss permitting schools to display corporate logos on fields and are considering jersey patches.
We wonder how this will trickle over to swimming…🤔
What say you? pic.twitter.com/ODNMQrpGfP
— SwimSwam (@swimswamnews) May 31, 2024
The NCAA rules on logos on competition wear has at times become heated in swimming when it has led to disqualifications. At the 2019 Minnesota Invitational, a University of Texas relay was disqualified when a swimmer wore a suit that were legal under the rules of international competition but ran afoul of the NCAA’s limitations.
At the time, Texas swimmers blamed Cal head coach Dave Durden for reporting the logo violation, though that was never officially confirmed and one referee at the meet says that it was a referee that noticed the infraction.
The House v. NCAA settlement includes almost $2.8 billion in back damages for lost opportunities from the organization’s past restrictions on name, image, and likeness (NIL) dating back to 2016. Former Arizona State swimmer Grant House first brought the class-action lawsuit against the NCAA back in 2020 before college athletes were granted publicity rights. The more consequential component of the settlement, however, is a revenue-sharing model that would allow schools to share up to $22 million annually with athletes — essentially a salary cap — likely starting in the fall of 2025, if approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken.
Unlike past legal losses, NCAA member schools will pay the majority of the damages rather than the organization itself. Individual institutions will combine for 59% ($1.65 billion) while the NCAA will cover 41% ($1.65 billion) of the cost to about 14,500 players dating back to 2016. The 27 non-Power Five conference will pay $990 million over a decade compared to $664 million for the Power Five.
Without a settlement, the NCAA reportedly risked losing $20 billion in damages if the organization was dealt another defeat in court. The settlement doesn’t solve all of the NCAA’s problems as the organization still faces the possibility of college athletes becoming employees and potentially unionizing.
Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts offered an interesting perspective on the changing NCAA landscape during SEC spring meetings this week.
“We’ve just always had enough increasing revenue to overcome dumb expenses,” said Alberts, an expert on “dumb expenses” after spending more than $75 million to fire football coach Jimbo Fisher last year. “I’ve said it 100 times, and I’ll say it again: We don’t have a revenue problem in college athletics, we have an expense problem.”
One aspect of the settlement features roster limits replacing scholarship caps. Sources told SwimSwam that the SEC has discussed potential roster limits of 35 for women and 22 for men. The average men’s roster size in the SEC was 26 compared to 33 for women.
So Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and maybe A&M, LSU, Oklahoma, and Florida will get the $5 million for jersey patches and $1 million for 25-yard line logos, and Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Missouri, Arkansas, and South Carolina will get more like $1 million for jersey patches and maybe $200,000 for 25-yard line sponsorships.
Although all of this lawsuit stuff is potentially devastating for the sport of swimming as a whole, let’s take a minute to appreciate how sick that throwback Gatorade logo would look on Josh Liendo’s cap
I’m still trying to understand how a moderately successful college swimmer became the poster child for something everyone and their mothers knows is all about football…
I think a 1:30 200 freestyler is a bit above “moderately” success
In the context of a lawsuit where he represents the plight of revenue generating athletes moderately successful is appropriate
I would have put a temporary tattoo on my chest of the local mexican joint for every meet if they gave me free tacos.
What would it have taken for a permanent tattoo?
A side of chips and guac with the tacos and maybe a bev at the very least. Maybe meals for the homies when im not ridin solo.
NCAA Puts a logo on the bottom of the pool at NCAA’s, I think TYR does it at the Pro Swim Series.
Sounds like an easy way to get some additional income.
House is going to be booed into oblivion in Indy. I hope he makes a final (unlikely because he’s washed) so the boos can ring from coast to coast
I hope he DQs. Letting him make a final takes away an opportunity from yet another swimmer.
I’m sorry, but blaming House is disingenuous at best. The inevitable march to the professionalization of college sports was a snowball rolling down a mountain. It has been growing and speeding up for a few decades now. A lot of people point to the NCAA v, BoR of Univ. of Oklahoma (1984, SCOTUS) as the beginning of the end.
Trying to vilify House is just wrong.
Agreed, I really don’t think House played any role in his case transforming from an NIL backpay lawsuit into the “broadcast NIL” revenue-sharing beast it became. Seems like a legal strategy by some of the best antitrust lawyers in the country
What did he think it would become? If successful, it sets precedent, meaning the payments are going to be entitled in perpetuity. Again, House didn’t think this through. Was it happening anyway? Maybe, probably. But for a swimmer?!? To spearhead a suit that puts colleges on the hook for million$? It’s upsetting.
The professionalization of college sports applies to the revenue generators. House thought the saw the writing on the wall but misread it. He should have been happy with whatever NIL he got during his time. Instead, he thought he was Ed O’Bannon. He was gullible, naive, and greedy in signing up for the attorneys’ pitch. Unintended or not, House’s name will forever be attached to the (likely) demise of Olympic sports at universities in the U.S.
Unintended or not, House’s name will forever be attached to the fight for labor rights for athletes taken advantage of by a corrupt organization
Yes, how dare someone sue for something they are legally entitled to. How dare someone hold a massive organization accountable for violating the law. What a miscarriage of justice that the law was enforced. Such shame.
Is it justice that students will be paying for this settlement with their tuition? Universities can’t just freely spend their endowments however they want (also not every school has a huge one), this money is coming out of broke students pockets.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
Disagree. Yes, professionalization of college sports was coming. But no one aimed the barrel at House and said to spearhead this. Swimmers are supposed to be intelligent. I think Grant House is intellectually capable, but he misread the fallout completely, assuming he thought this through. It is absolutely galling to fans of non-rev sports that a non-rev guy championed the suit that may kill said sports.
So it’s not disingenuous. The side that blames him is correct. And the side that says, “this was coming anyway” is also correct. But let someone truly affected lead the pursuit.
I understand that you are angry. But your anger is misdirected. This was happening with or without House. The lawyers make the arguments. House wasn’t pivotal to this ending up the way it did.
This was inevitable.
We’re just going to have to disagree. For sure the lawyers are the worst, but someone had to take the plunge to set it in motion. Why House?
Most aren’t arguing that he caused this. The ruination of college sports has been coming for 5, 10, maybe more years. But for it to be a swimmer if all people, when swimming is a sport that will surely fear the axe when ADs make cuts. SMH.
This. And folks can dress it up in explanations/make excuses for House, but bottom line – he CHOSE to continue to back this.
He will have some nerve to show up to Olympic Trials for a sport he will likely end up hurting (whether intended or not). No one wants him to make the team, and he should absolutely be boo’d.
I hope he makes the team solely to see all the seething in the swimswam comments
The crowd should boo Grant House at trials
Amateur sport no longer in existence. The almighty dollar has won the day.
Greece made the same mistake.