Different Types Of Collegiate Licensing

With college basketball and football originating in the 1800’s, the game has had much time to adapt. Over the years, the sports have become more and more popular, gaining a bigger fan base, which has resulted in substantial profits from the sale of merchandise representing the teams and players. There is one thing that has not changed; all of the athletes are still not being paid. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, is an organization that regulates most aspects of

The NCAA has been around and evolved since the beginning of college sports. This organization is a non-profitable organization, but ironically makes more than millions of profit per year. Branch states “that money comes from a combination of ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise, licensing fees, and other sources—but the great bulk of it comes from television contract”(pg. 228). Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not receive any of this money. This is the start of an unsubstantial business between universities built around amateurism.

The latest information it reported to the U.S. Department of Education showed that during the 2011-2012 school year, the university spent $25.8 million on its football team and that football team returned $103.8 million in revenues. One reason that contributed to the extraordinary return on investment was a 20-year, $300 million contract signed with ESPN in 2011 to create the Longhorn Network, which is a new telecasting arm for all Texas sports. Another factor was licensing royalties Texas earned for selling its logo and burnt orange color on merchandise, which, for an eighth consecutive year, was the top-selling college merchandise in what is a $4.6 billion industry nationwide.

Along with the generation of revenue, the popularity of the athlete has amplified income for the National Collegiate

It is the NCAA’s policy that no student athlete shall receive any special benefits or compensation in regard to their status as an athlete of a university. This basically means that no player can accept gifts or services with any special benefits from school or athletic personnel, or receive any benefits for outside entrepreneurship for reasons regarding their play. For example, a student athlete cannot sign a jersey with their number on it and exchange it for any type of compensation. However, over the past few years, many scandalous conspiracies of soliciting services to athletes for their commitment and play have surfaced. Due to the NCAA’s stance on this issue many of these violations have left athletics programs with sanctions that in reality are very unnecessary and hardly ever punish those who initially violated the rules. The fact is that the college athletics generates on average 10.5 billion dollars of revenue annually, and the NCAA organization alone, about 720 million annually. Of that 720 million that the NCAA accounts for, only 60 percent of that is returned to the Division I universities whose athletics accounted for almost all of it. The rest is dispersed into other funds such as championship games and the national office services, with a small amount being paid to division II and III schools. However, of that 60 percent paid back to the Division I schools, which amounts to approximately 430 million dollars, the majority is spent by the University on

Universities can sell sponsorships to various companies for advertising (at a minimum of about $300,000 per year) and have recently begun naming their stadiums after large corporations in exchange for large donations. Most large athletic departments have lucrative deals, worth about $1 million yearly, with shoe companies. Many colleges receive a substantial amount in royalties for college merchandise, which is sold under official license; some schools receive up to $6 million annually from this source. Coaches also stand to make a significant salary (including base salary from school as well as television, radio, and shoe company stipends) with the highest paid football and basketball coaches currently earning $1-$2 million a year (Eitzen 2000). Even among schools who don’t produce these extreme amounts of revenue,

University’s draft athletes to work within the NCAA, a, multi-billion dollar industry that regulates players to the point of management. All television revenue, ticket and jersey sales, promotions and other sources of income goes to everyone involved in the business except for the athletes creating the worth. According to USA Today Sports in 2014, the NCAA had total revenue of nearly 1 billion during its 2014 fiscal year, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL, and NBA playoffs. (NCAA nearly topped $1billion in

The legal dispute between the National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks and Texas A&M University over the exploitation of the slogan “12th Man” is not only a respectable example of the significance of brand loyalty, but it is also an important case that proves the importance of having a strong brand equity. Both sport organizations take considerable pride in their supporters and fans, who they realize is the backbone of their success as an organization/ corporation. Texas A&M University’s claim over the use of the phrase “12th Man” was arguable but they stood their ground when the Seahawks defied the University’s letter to discontinue their usage of the phrase. The TAMU Vice President for Communications was protected under the Federal Trademark Act of 1946, which had the purpose of defending the right of the owner to protect the mark that symbolizes their respective organization. The case between the two warring sport properties (which was ultimately settled out of court) proved the importance of brand equity and the benefits of it as well—one major benefit being the licensing and merchandising opportunities to sell to other organizations. In exchange for the Seahawks to use the 12th man trademark, they had to pay a $100,000 licensing fee plus, publicly

Each season college students and fans support their sports team in hopes of a National Championship Title. They purchase season tickets, team clothing, and expensive sports packages from television providers in order to watch their team from afar. This generates a lot of cash for universities and retailers.

Especially the big main sports such as football and basketball. The school has a lot of radio, TV, and newspaper deals that also bring money to them. You have to think about the people who can’t always watch the game, they can hear it. Not only do they have those contracts, but you got to remember when the actual games start and there at the big stadium or dome. The revenue for one game is over 10,000 to 20,000 people just for one game. They have prices for food, beverages, stuffed dolls, programs, and souvenir, that a lot of that 10-20,000 buy at all the games. This is very messed up because most of the souvenirs are the current player’s jersey with their number on it, but the jersey doesn’t have their name on the back of it, just their number. The jersey makes the sale with or without the players name on it and none of the players get a cut of any type of money. So the players just worked their buts off since JFL just to get to college and get not even a couple dollars. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s an unbelievable organization – but in some way they’re taking advantage of college athletes that sign their name into a certain school.” “When I was (at Alabama) in ’09, I think revenue when we won the national championship that year was like $62 million. And when we won it in New Orleans (in 2011), it was like $78 million. Then when we beat (Notre Dame in 2012), it was like $92 million.” (Mitrosilis)

College athletics assume a large role in the entertainment industry of America. Each week, millions of people tune in to watch their favorite team, buy tickets to go to the games, or spend money on university athletic merchandise to show their pride. The NCAA and universities benefit enormously from college sports. The top 10 total revenues generated by universities were all well over the $100,000,000 mark in 2012 (“College Finances 2012”). The University of Texas tops the list with $163,295,115 total revenue from athletics (“College Finances 2012”). Last football season, Texas A&M University quarterback Johnny Manziel won the Heisman Trophy. As the first freshman to ever win the trophy, he propagated over 1.8 million media impressions which translated to $37 million of media exposure (Cook). The University’s licensing revenue jumped 23% this past year due to the success of one player (Cook). The NCAA itself generated $871,600,000 in revenue from the championship games (“College Finances 2012”). All of this revenue is impossible without the student-athletes. The NCAA is strict on making sure that athletes should be treated no different from any other student (Blias). However, the athletes are involved in a heavily commercialized multi-billion dollar industry. As amateurs, athletes remain restricted solely to scholarships as the only form

One view point in this issue is the view point of the higher up people at universities and the NCAA. College athletics are fully commercialized and is also a huge money making business. The benefactors of this largely successful corporation are the

The teams of the NFL established the NFLP or National Football League Properties to “develop, license, and market” the teams' intellectual property in 1963. The organization allowed a certain amount of nonexclusive licenses to a variety of licensees. American Needle was one of the licensees. They made a variety of headwear that displayed the various NFL team logos. The licensing agreement lasted until 2000. The NFL teams sanctioned the NFLP to give Reebok an exclusive license for headwear. With this decision, the NFLP did not renew American Needle’s license or the licenses of any other headwear vendors.

That’s right, sports team branding is more than just a gimmick. It’s not about creating an eye-catching image and forcing it on people. It’s about building an identity, and maintaining it. We see this a lot in college sports especially.

Marketing plans and strategies are an important part of almost any business today. One of the biggest industries marketing plans have benefited and changed in a number of different ways is the sports industry. The development of the sports marketing industry has led companies to invest millions of dollars to have their product associated with specific teams, players, and sporting events attempting to connect with consumer and create profit for both parties involved. The money involved in sports marketing calls for these sponsorships and endorsement decisions to be made both strategically and confidently. After researching the sports industry from a business perspective the importance of marketing decisions is