In January, the NCAA’s DI cabinet approved commercial patches for uniforms, equipment, and apparel in college sports. In the Big Ten, the practice has slowly been adopted, but the genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no putting it back in. And yes, that goes for the Basic Blues, too.
On Monday, Illinois announced its partnership with Busey Bank, becoming the third team in the conference to announce a jersey sponsorship patch, joining Northwestern and Michigan State.
It’s not surprising that the league’s smaller-budget athletic departments would be the earliest adopters. They need to make up the financial delta any way they can. But, as it always goes, the rich are going to get richer.
On Tuesday, Ohio State announced a JP Morgan Chase patch on all of its athletic uniforms. Illinois’s deal was worth $30 million over five years. Ohio State is set to make $17 million annually. The gap only grows, and the Buckeyes just forced everyone else’s hand.
Penn State will be forced to match Ohio State’s $17 million jersey patch deal
Ohio State is already spending the most money on its football roster in the Big Ten. Oregon is right alongside the Buckeyes, and Indiana’s donor base is on fire after Curt Cignetti’s unfathomable turnaround. Still, when it comes to spending on sports, it seems the Buckeyes reign supreme, and the numbers have only risen since they won it all in 2024 with a $20 million roster.
Remember when that was a big deal? A $20 million roster. How quaint? That roster was a bargain. Within two years, multiple programs are spending over $50 million on their football rosters, and multiple basketball teams cost upwards of $20 million. The growth won’t be exponential. There are only so many billionaires willing to throw money at their favorite football team (though the number of them is increasing at an alarming rate).
Still, the reality is that it’s never been more expensive to win a championship in college football. So, the teams serious about winning one have to exhaust every possible avenue for revenue generation. I mean, it’s the “Monster Energy Big 12” now. In case you thought that story was a fever dream you had during a midsummer nap, that is very real and very insane.
As much as fans may hate to see Giant, West Shore Home, Utz, or some other Penn State corporate partner’s name desecrate one of the most iconic uniforms in all of sports, it’s inevitable. It’s also the type of thing every team in the country has to do to compete in the modern landscape.
If Ohio State has to do it, you do too. So, it’s only a matter of time. Maybe just a matter of days before Penn State announces its jersey patch partner and the Basic Blues become a little less basic. There's almost no doubt that Pat Kraft is already in talks to land a deal, and if he's not, that's borderline malpractice.
Now don’t get me wrong. I hate it as much as you do. I’ve just given up fighting against the ever-encroaching wave of late-stage capitalism in sports because there are more important places for that energy to go.
So yeah, Penn State will have a jersey patch. We’ll all hate it. But you know what we’d hate more? Penn State losing games with its pristine, untainted jerseys (which aren’t untainted at all and already have a prominent logo on them- a different one for this season after the school left Nike to secure a mega-deal with Adidas).
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