💰 Kansas lands massive jersey sponsorship deal
📝 Quick Links: Darryn Peterson is torching Summer League
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EVERYTHING IN THIS NEWSLETTER IS BASED UPON WHAT I AM HEARING FROM PEOPLE I TRUST. PLEASE DO NOT MISTAKE THIS FOR FACT OR FOR ACTUAL JOURNALISM, WHICH HAS VERIFICATION STANDARDS THAT I HAVE NOT ADHERED TO. I DO NOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT.
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Big Money and XRP on Every Jersey
I’m Hearing Kansas landed an eight-figure dollar jersey sponsorship with Ripple, the crypto company behind XRP, run by KU grad Brad Garlinghouse.
You may want to start remembering that name.
I’m Hearing the deal is worth $30 million over five years. This deal is months in the making and, frankly, dwarfs the Big 12's new jersey-patch partnership with Monster Energy announced Tuesday.
This deal puts the XRP logo on every Kansas uniform. That’s all 16 teams and every program at KU.
The XRP-KU jersey patch
Multiple companies were bidding on this sponsorship from KU deal. I'm hearing Kansas and Ripple spent months making sure the patch design worked for each brand's needs. (Thankfully, it isn’t green).
I even tried telling you about it back in February 😉
KU’s release frames as the first crypto deal on the jersey of any major college program. And it comes not long after the NCAA cleared schools to sell space on game uniforms.
This is what I’m Hearing on the money:
I haven't seen any dollar figure as part of the first stories this morning. I’m Hearing KU landed this at $5M per year for $30M total.
That mark is well beyond the Big 12’s Monster Energy money and the FNBO court sponsorship.
I’m Hearing the FNBO logo is around $1.5M annually (it increases ~$100K per year).
I’ve Heard that green logo was… not well received internally at KU.
The Big 12’s deal: A league-wide Monster Energy deal that puts a Monster Energy patch on jerseys, reportedly ~$1M+ for each school.
I have to believe this means the KU jerseys will now carry two sponsor logos:the conference’s Monster patch and the school’s XRP patch.
There’s more to this than the jersey patch, and this is pretty awesome.
XRP is funding financial and technology education programs for KU athletes and the wider campus, along with a pipeline to connect Kansas grads with tech jobs.
That can make a difference for Jayhawks long after the patch is gone.
Garlinghouse, Ripple’s CEO, has been one of KU’s best friends for a while. His name is already on Garlinghouse Plaza through the Gateway project. And he was an early supporter of KU’s NIL efforts.
I think we’d all love sharing something like this...
Even before KU fans started learning his name, Garlinghouse set up a program connecting KU students to Silicon Valley, along with funding blockchain research in 2019.
Here’s how I see it:
There are a few things I really like about this.
It doesn’t come out of the fans in any way. Ticket prices don’t go up. Nobody’s walling off more premium seats.
KU needs to generate revenue on its most valuable real estate. We’re in a moment when schools are paying players directly, and Kansas is carrying stadium debt at the same time.
This is also unique to KU. A partnership with a Jayhawk alum set up in a way that can benefit Kansas and its students for years and years to come.
The NBA went down this road with jersey patches in 2017. Now they’re on basically every uniform in the league. I’d bet a lot more of these are coming across college sports.
Kansas got out ahead of it.
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🏀 Darryn Peterson is tearing up Summer League. He scored 28 in his debut with the go-ahead three in OT, then 25 points and 12 assists two nights later.
🎥 Watch his debut highlights (Jazz fans lost it) and the 25-and-12 second game. You may want to tune in Thursday, when Peterson (No. 2) plays AJ Dybantsa (No. 1), 9pm ET on ESPN, to open Vegas Summer League.
🏀 KJ Adams scored his first NBA (Summer League) points. Adams is back to basketball more than a year after his torn Achilles. Naturally, he’s still throwing it down.
📝 More on the Big 12’s own patch play. We are now the Monster Energy conference. Hear us roar.
🏀 And one more thing: I built a game for KU fans. Draft the best five-man team. Not the most talented lineup. The best Bill Self team. See if you can win Self his third ring… or put together something he’d call SOFT.
It drops in the next few days right here.
