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Before we get into today’s story, a quick announcement I’m excited to share: Oakland is now using the Extra Points Library:
EPL allows athletic departments, newsrooms, professors, businesses and other organizations to access original and current college sports data at an affordable rate. To learn more about how EPL can help your organization, check out library.extrapointsmb.com.
One of the significant reasons so many senators got on board with the Protect College Sports Act was its design to slow down, if not outright stop, conference realignment over the next several years. With potential gaps on Power 4 league membership and significant penalties for schools leaving one power league for another, the bill would certainly make some realignment moves much harder.
But that doesn’t mean the musical chairs will stop. In fact, outside the P4, realignment conversations haven’t stopped. After a quieter start to the academic calendar, those conversations are heating up all over the country.
Last week, On3 reported (and the Athletic later confirmed) that James Madison, UConn and Miami (Ohio) had all reached out to the American about potential league membership. (UConn’s reach-out was for a football-only membership.)
That JMU and UConn football would at least kick the tires on American membership isn’t especially surprising. Even after many defections over the past decade, the American still has the best media rights deal of the Group of 6, the best brand (to the extent that such a thing can really be measured and quantified these days) and a new commercial arm, Rise Ventures, which is poised to deliver even more financial and structural resources to member schools.
The Miami Redhawks are a slightly different type of candidate. The school was reportedly prepared to spend in the neighborhood of $30 million to make such a move happen — similar to what North Dakota State did with the MWC, Sacramento State with the MAC and Memphis in its attempt to join the Big 12.
According to a statement provided to both the Athletic and On3: “The American is not proactively seeking additional members. We will continue to evaluate the changing landscape and opportunities that strengthen the conference and support our collective mission.”
Earlier this week, a different Athletic story dug deep into Miami’s ambitions and timetable. From that story:
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A bi-weekly look at the rapidly changing licensing landscape in college sports, as part of a paid sponsorship with Desert Cactus.
In 2024, LSU announced a partnership with YETI, the cooler and drinkware brand, introduced exclusive LSU-branded tumblers available only at the school's sports venues. The deal stacks two revenue streams into one partnership; it's structured as a sponsorship multimedia rights partnership — meaning YETI pays LSU for exposure and access, a straightforward sponsorship fee — while the tumblers generate a separate layer of royalty revenue tied directly to units sold.
This is the model athletic departments should aspire to. Never let a splashy in-venue product be just a licensing deal when it can also be structured as a paid sponsorship.
There's a scarcity element, too. LSU's YETI tumblers present a new sales opportunity at every home game, since each tumbler is only issued once. A fan chasing the full set has to buy repeatedly rather than once, meaning the product line generates royalty revenue on a recurring, per-game basis.
At Texas, YETI holds the naming rights to a fan zone at the baseball stadium, giving the school pure sponsorship revenue, and the school also has released "Block T" tumblers at certain games, which aren't available for general online retail sale. It's a perfect example of two distinct revenue lines running simultaneously at one athletic department.
Another drinkware brand, Frost Buddy, sells exclusive cup designs at concessions stands during games at Indiana and Michigan. That means every unit sold at counters generates royalty revenue in real time, rather than forcing the athletic departments to depend on separate team-store or online sales.
The free-refill mechanic isn't just a fan perk — it's built to maximize royalty volume per fan, per game. By pulling fans back to the concession stand multiple times over three hours instead of once, Frost Buddy's refill model at Indiana increases how many billable transactions (and how much royalty revenue) a single ticketholder generates in one sitting, compared to a standard one-time merchandise purchase.
Brands are pursuing sponsorship-plus-royalty revenue at different scales, and schools can choose which model fits. YETI concentrates deep, multi-revenue-stream relationships at marquee programs, while Frost Buddy spreads sponsorship and royalty revenue more thinly across a much larger number of schools. Both are viable revenue strategies, and every school can decide which plan works best for its market.
