The announcements came within hours of each other on Tuesday morning. First, it was Ohio State and its partnership with Chase Bank, worth $17 million annually, according to a source with knowledge of the agreement. Later in the morning, it was Notre Dame and SoFi, a deal that could be worth up to $20 million per year, according to another source.
For slapping a patch on a jersey.
Let’s be honest: Tradition has seemingly never mattered less in college football. West Coast teams are playing in the Big Ten and the Atlantic Coast Conference. USC and Notre Dame no longer play each other, one of many longtime rivalries currently on the shelf. The regular season, the most meaningful in all of sports, is in danger of being further devalued with each new College Football Playoff proposal.
On Tuesday, Notre Dame and Ohio State just confirmed the obvious: No college football uniform is sacred. Prepare for your favorite program to jump in the boat as well — no matter how “clean” you think their jerseys might look.
The Fighting Irish and Buckeyes join programs such as LSU (Woodside Energy), Wisconsin (Culver’s), Arkansas (Tyson Foods) and many others that have announced jersey-patch partnerships this offseason. The Big 12 reached an agreement with Monster Energy to put patches on every conference member’s uniform this fall.
To no one’s surprise, this has not been popular with traditionalists — of which this sport has many. The logo of “insert big name financial institution here” isn’t aesthetically pleasing on a college football jersey. We can all agree on that.
But at the same time, were college football uniforms really sacred to begin with? Notre Dame and Ohio State are among the bluest of blue-blood programs, but both have worn several alternate uniforms that have bucked tradition over the past decade-plus.
Georgia, Florida State, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas A&M and other high-profile schools have worn alternate jerseys in the recent past as well. Were the proceeds from those jersey sales donated to fight global hunger? No. They were produced to make money for football programs and catch the attention of recruits.
The purpose of jersey patches is clear: To provide an additional source of revenue to pay for players.
There are four programs that have never really compromised their uniforms over time: Alabama, Penn State, Texas and USC. Those schools might have worn a throwback or tinkered with a helmet variation, but for the most part they have one standard home uniform and one for the road. And the designs haven’t changed much, if at all, over the years.
When push comes to shove, though, it’s difficult to envision how those programs will resist the payday that comes with a jersey-patch agreement — especially now that it costs $40 million or more to build a roster to compete at the highest levels of college football. That figure is only expected to rise in the coming years.
Very few schools will make the type of money Notre Dame and Ohio State can command, but if a program can make $10 million to be sure its offensive line is well-stocked or add some big-play potential to its receiving corps, it makes no sense to turn that down.
When we think of sacred uniforms, we think of programs that built a strong brand by winning a bunch of games over decades. Tradition is built through winning. No one thinks of the uniforms of the sport’s perennial losers as sacred because those teams don’t win.
So Notre Dame and Ohio State — and the others that surely will follow — will try to uphold their winning standards by leaning into every possible competitive advantage. And while some fans might not like it, you know what they hate more?
Losing.
