Making the Big XII $20 million a year deal with Monster Energy look even worse, the University of Illinois just signed their own sponsorship deal for $6 million a year for five seasons.
While the Big XII deal encompasses the entirety of the schools in the league, Illinoisâ deal covers just the Fighting Illini athletes. This deal makes Illinois the third Big Ten school to make such a deal following Wisconsinâs deal with Culverâs to place a patch on their football, menâs basketball and menâs hockey jerseys and the Michigan State 10-year deal with MSU Federal Credit Union.
The Michigan State deal was the first such deal in the Big Ten and will include patches on all jersey for all 23 menâs and womenâs sports sponsored by Michigan State athletics.
Illinois, who has been the most successful of these three schools in recent seasons in football and in menâs basketball where it is coming off a Final Four run has made the plunge with a deal that makes Brett Yormarkâs deal look miniscule by comparison.
The Fighting Illini will have $six million per season to spend on NIL on top of the Big Tenâs already massive financial advantage over other conferences. On the other hand, the Big XII schools will get barely $1 million per season on their deal according to Sports Business Journal. Who also broke news of the Illinois deal through reporter Ben Portnoy. A deal which was announced by Athletics Director Josh Whitman and was brokered for the University of Illinois by Learfield.
The Big XII deal also includes not just patches. It also includes signage and field logos on top of the jersey logos which are paid for in the Big Ten team deals.
One way that the Illinois deal does diverge from the others is in the coach apparel requirements. While the other deals signed do not make mention of the coaching staff, the Illinois deal states that a logo is to be worn by coaches while on the sidelines for games.
This does not seem like a major detail. But it allowed Illinois to increase the payout by offering this up. Especially with known coaches around the game in both Burce Underwood and Bret Bielema. With the likes of Illinois getting such a lucrative deal, it will be exciting to see what bigger and more successful schools can obtain on the open market.
A school like Ohio State or Texas will be in the range of $15 or more per season while Notre Dame can get to $20 million if the Irish are willing to tarnish their traditional jerseys for financial gain.
The $1 million number for the Big XII will forever be seen as an attempt by Yormark to get any money he can for the conference. It looks like it will do more damage than it does good in the grand scheme of things. It would have been far better for the teams and the conference if he had let the schools make their own deals. Instead, he collected a check on another below market deal.
While the last one saved the conference and gave them a television package, this one will not be beneficial. Illinois, on the other hand, should be excited by this development and can use the money to significant effect to build themselves up in football and to the top of the conference in basketball.
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