Welcome to a new era in college sports, where everything at your favorite venue — from the space available on a players squeeze bottle to the name on top of the building — is for sale.
The almost-anything-goes cash grab comes as athletic departments around the country look to juice program revenue to compensate, and compete for, the best talent in the game. At the center of the revenue drive is JMI Sports, best known locally for its co-owners connection to the San Diego Padres and Petco Park.
The San Diego-based firm is ramping up its multimedia rights business, connecting brands anxious for marquee attention with athletic departments willing to sell licensing, sponsorship and naming rights associated with their most storied assets.
JMI Sports will soon sign the University of San Diego. The deal locks up the local collegiate market, which includes UC San Diego, in an effort the company describes as a concerted push to elevate each San Diego school’s profile — alongside the region’s overall image — with brands, fans and prospective players around the country.
JMI Sports was founded in 2006 by former San Diego Padres owner John Moores and former front office executive Erik Judson, who is the firms CEO. The company was formed after the development of Petco Park, as a parallel organization to Moores hotel development firm JMI Realty. The idea was to replicate the downtown stadiums success with an exclusive focus on sports facilities.
Erik Judson, left, and John Moores at the JMI Sports office in Del Mar. The pair started the sports facility development firm after the development of Petco Park. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The firm went on to manage the development of Goodyear Ballpark, which is the MLB Spring Training facility for the Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds, as well as the University of Oregons Matthew Knight Arena and its adjacent Ford Alumni Center. JMI Sports more recently worked in partnership with Legends to develop San Diego State Universitys Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley. The company had also hoped to develop a new, smaller sports arena in San Diegos Midway District as part of a failed bid for the citys sports arena real estate.
Although facility development remains a part of the business, the JMI Sports playbook now primarily revolves around multimedia rights, choreographing the money-making moves for athletic departments ill-equipped to compete for the biggest sponsorship deals.
The professional teams have an entire business around operating the team and driving revenue. So they sell sponsorships, they sell naming rights. Universities, about 40 years ago, realized that they didnt have the competency to do that, Judson said. The vast majority of Division I sports athletic departments outsource what they call multimedia rights. So we are the ones who represent them in selling sponsorships, selling naming rights and selling (exclusivity deals).
JMI Sports kicked off its multimedia rights business in 2014, inking a 15-year deal with the University of Kentucky that guarantees the school $210 million in revenue. The ongoing arrangement resulted in the renaming of UK’s football stadium to Kroger Field in 2021.
In more recent years, JMI Sports has cemented its position in the growing market with wide-ranging deals with San Diego State University and the University of Utah. And in July, JMI secured the multimedia rights for the University of California Los Angeles — at the same time it signed with the operators of Pasadenas historic Rose Bowl.
What that looks like at venues — take Snapdragon Stadium or Pauley Pavilion — is branded entrances, bars, lounges, locker rooms, tunnels, fan zones, field goal nets, game clocks, stair step signage, rim signage, coaches headsets, floor mops and even charging stations.
For instance, as of April, Alaska Airlines is the official airline of SDSU Athletics and Snapdragon Stadium. The three-year deal includes branding on the southeast entrance gate, which is now the Alaska Airlines gate. Here the airline is offering its rewards program members expedited entry into the venue.
The stadium or arena sponsored experience is, of course, coupled with the familiar rotating display of ads on video boards and ribbon boards. And it is further supplemented by branded broadcasts and halftime shows.
Sometimes a little less obvious, but equally lucrative, are exclusivity arrangements that guarantee business in categories like banking and travel from both athletic departments and players.
The Alaska Airlines deal with SDSU, for example, ensures that the SDSU football team takes Alaska Airlines charter flights to away games this season.
Alaska Airlines is the official airline of SDSU Athletics and Snapdragon Stadium thanks to a three-year multimedia rights deal that includes branding on the southeast entrance gate at Snapdragon Stadium. Here the airline is also offering its rewards program members expedited entry into the venue. (San Diego State University)
A similar incentive exists for Credit Union 1, which is the official banking partner of Notre Dame Athletics. The credit unions 14-year deal with Notre Dame, which JMI helped facilitate in 2021, means the school must do all of its banking with the institution. Whats more, Credit Union 1 is guaranteed direct access to student athletes — a much younger crowd than the nonprofit banks typical customer base — through educational materials on financial literacy. The idea is to get helpful financial information in the hands of college kids on the verge of big paydays.
Most people dont realize that the No. 1 distributor of financial information and financial literacy right now is YouTube, not a bank, said Todd Gunderson, who is the CEO of the Illinois-based institution. So what we do is, within our financial literacy, we deliver the content with YouTube videos, within 90-second clips. Theres training and theres courses, (done) in a way that is a lot more presentable than the old days.
The idea was just extended to the entire Mountain West conference, with Credit Union 1 becoming in October the official financial and literacy partner of the conference through 2027, thanks to a new deal orchestrated by JMI.
Driving these newer and more wide-ranging deals is, in part, a mega legal flip in rules around athletes ability to profit from their name, image, likeness, or NIL, and the once-unfathomable prospect that colleges may soon opt to pay athletes for their talents.
In 2021, the NCAA adopted a policy allowing college players to get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness, meaning the amateurs can make money from activities such as selling autographs and merchandise or making public appearances. The policys application looks different in each state, where legislatures are still codifying the legality of the pay-to-play shift.
Its also increasingly likely that, come 2025, schools across the country will be able to pay their athletes directly. Thats thanks to a $2.8 billion preliminary approval of a settlement in the House vs. NCAA class-action, antitrust lawsuit.
The potential millions in new out-of-pocket expenses has athletic departments around the nation scouting for more cash.
Illinois-based Credit Union 1 is the official banking partner of Notre Dame Athletics. The multimedia rights deal, which started in 2021, includes signage and activations at Notre Dame venues and events, as well as access to athletes to promote financial literacy. (Credit Union 1)
The tectonic shifts that have happened in college athletics over the last five years are incredible. Im around the country every week talking with college presidents and athletic directors (about) the whole revenue-sharing thing with the House settlement the pay-for-play realities. These are things that were so far off. Those were such dirty words. Its now the norm, Judson said. Theres a recognition that athletic departments need to be run like businesses. Where before they were primarily focused on student education and well-being and games and events, they now need to cost effectively drive more revenue to support the growing business.
Once the House settlement receives final approval, SDSU intends to implement a revenue-sharing model with its top student athletes, said John David Wicker, who is the schools athletics director.
Itll be athletic department funding. It wont have anything to do with institutional funding or state funding. We would then determine how much do we have to share with student athletes, Wicker said. Its a way to share revenue with those students that help generate all this revenue while still being able to provide scholarships opportunities for all of the other sports that dont generate revenue.
San Diego States athletics department is not profitable.
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, the department brought in just as much money as it spent, or $96.6 million, according to required information reported to the U.S. Department of Education. With the prospect of paying athletes on the immediate horizon, the athletic department needs to find more things to sell.
The schools multimedia rights deal with JMI Sports, which dates to 2021 and runs through 2031, is primarily structured as a 50-50 revenue split, meaning SDSU pockets half all of revenue generated from licensed rights. Once JMI recoups 110 percent of its expenses in any given year, the universitys share jumps to 70 percent of revenue. In the fiscal year ending June 30, SDSU collected around $3.5 million in cash and services from the deal, Wicker said.
The amount is a fraction of what a higher profile program can bring in each year. For instance, UCLA is guaranteed roughly $10 million to $11 million per year from JMI Sports, per the terms of its 11-year contract with the firm, which was obtained through a public records request.
As we continue to ramp up Snapdragon, and then with the opportunities weve got at Viejas, we want to maximize every dollar that we can get, Wicker said. So we want to continue to grow it as big as we can get.
And every dollar counts.
JMI Sports CEO Erik Judson, left, locking hands with University of Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart at an event at Central Bank Center Pavilion in downtown Lexington on Oct. 25. The event commemorated the 10th anniversary of the university’s partnership with JMI Sports. (University of Kentucky College of Communications)
Its a bit of a wild west, said George Foster, who is a professor of management at Stanfords Graduate School of Business and an expert in the business of sports. Recruits are looking at, what are you providing in NIL? And its not just the recruits. Its retaining the existing talent you have.
In other words, program costs have shot up while revenue has remained flat, at best, Foster said.
Weve moved now to where creativity on revenue is an essential element of the athletic department — to the extent that it hasnt been as much in the past, he said. The newest stadiums are set up so there is much more an emphasis on revenue yield. One of the challenges of the San Diego market is that theres not a large number of corporations down there.
Learfield, a sports marketing company thats been around for decades, is the clear leader in the collegiate multimedia rights business, Foster said. But the firm, which has changed hands and ownership structures several times in recent years, has faced its own financial challenges. And the market is more competitive than ever, even though its overall size is difficult to pin down.
Lost in the mix is seemingly any concern around whether branding a venues every nook and cranny undermines the prestige of esteemed colleges and their legendary assets, which have, in some ways, felt off-limits to excessive corporate takeover.
Fans recognize, now more than ever, that corporate partnerships and sponsorships are an important revenue stream to support the teams, Judson said. There werent signs on the Green Monster for a long time. (Lawrence) Lucchino went out there and he put signs on the wall. There werent signs on the ivy at Wrigley Field. There are now. And people accept it. Even those very historic buildings have come to realize that those dollars are necessary.
Wicker said SDSU strived to make the overall experience at Snapdragon Stadium tasteful, although it may not feel that way for fans faced with brands at every turn. There is, for instance, the Cox Business Club, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Club, the Dos Equis Club, the Sycuan Piers, the Cutwater Bar and so on.
We didnt want to turn (Snapdragon) into a NASCAR event, Wicker said. We feel like we hit a pretty middle ground on the amount of permanent signage thats there, and then the LED and the other (video boards).
But with even stadium railings for sale at some venues, the definition of tasteful seems to be expanding beyond recognition.