Editor's note: This is the second story in a three-part series from of a wide-ranging interview between MTN Sports' Greg Rachac and Big Sky Conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill that took place March 9 at the league's postseason basketball tournament in Boise, Idaho.
BILLINGS — A Town Pump patch on a Griz football uniform? A First Interstate logo on a Bobcats jersey?
Deride if you must, but Tom Wistrcill doesn't hesitate when it comes to the topic of corporate advertising on athletic uniforms in the Big Sky Conference. Make no mistake: it's coming.
Tom Wistrcill interview series: Part 1 | Part 3 (coming Thursday)
"I think it's absolutely in each of our schools' best interest to monetize that," Wistrcill, the eighth-year commissioner of the Big Sky, told MTN Sports in an interview during the league's postseason basketball tournament last week at Idaho Central Arena in Boise. "I think there's a market out there, and I think there are people that will definitely see the value in aligning their companies with our student-athletes and the great brands we have as universities."
In January, the NCAA approved advertising patches for uniforms for its Division I institutions in an effort to create more revenue for athletic budgets and to help further fund name, image and likeness deals.
According to the Associated Press, D-I schools will be allowed to place up to two patches (no more than 4 square inches) on uniforms for regular-season games, in addition to the emblems of Nike or Under Armour or Adidas or whoever outfits each school.
Wistrcill recently made a good-faith effort to capitalize on the opportunity league-wide, but he simply ran out of runway. He has since given the endeavor back to the individual schools in the Big Sky to pursue it as they please.
"When we saw this coming and anticipated the NCAA making it a formal opportunity, I asked the (university) presidents back in November to let me go chase it," Wistrcill said. "I thought, hey, you know what? Give me four months to see what this looks like. I'm asking for millions of dollars annually, because the only way it works is if all the schools can make more money than what they think they can make on their own."
He added: "I pitched 16, 17 different companies over the four months. It just wasn't enough time to get a deal done. So since then, just over the last few weeks, I've turned it back to the schools and their multimedia rights holders to decide how to sell that. So each school has that opportunity now to go back in, whether they choose to do one sponsor for every sport or they just want to do football or just do basketball, that's totally up to them."
For Montana and Montana State, the examples of Town Pump and First Interstate Bank are only hypothetical. But you get the gist of what it could look like in the next year or two.
Montana athletic director Kent Haslam said the Grizzlies are actively looking for sponsors, and that Learfield — the exclusive multimedia rights holder for both UM and Montana State athletics — is taking up the university's cause. Haslam said he hopes Montana has patches on its uniforms as soon as the coming academic year.
Montana State AD Leon Costello used similar language, saying the Bobcats are also actively pursuing jersey sponsors. He said they are first interested in sponsors for all sports but would consider individual sports, as well. Costello said MSU is also partnering with Learfield in this effort.
Said Wistrcill, "I would expect some of our teams — I guess I wouldn't say every team will have it done and in a way that they really feel comfortable — but absolutely we will see it this fall at all levels of college."
Several American sports leagues and franchises already incorporate jersey or uniform patches as a way to increase revenue, with NASCAR being the most egregious example. But the NBA does it, and corporate advertising has also appeared on jerseys and helmets in Major League baseball and the NHL. Major League Soccer began the trend some 20 years ago.
College athletics are next in line.
Wistrcill acknowledged that there might be pushback from the general public and college sports fans on uniform advertising. There's tradition and a sense sanctity and pageantry when it comes to some college uniforms. But what's traditional will soon become transactional.
Wistrcill knows it's crucial for the Big Sky's institutions to find more revenue outlets, criticism notwithstanding.
"What I would say to them is they make a very good point and I understand what they mean," Wistrcill said of detractors of this endeavor. "The natural progression of our entity, as in Division I athletics, now that we are sharing revenue with student-athletes, that they can monetize their name, image and likeness, is that we have to explore every revenue opportunity that we think is valuable.
"Every NBA team has a jersey sponsor now, and I challenge people to name who their jersey sponsor is for their favorite team. I'm a Lakers fan and have been since Magic (arrived) there in 1979 and their jersey sponsor is a company called, I'm going to say it wrong. It's like, Bilco or Bibico or something like that. It's a South Korean food company. And they're paying like $30 million a year because they wanted some brand awareness in the United States. But if you asked, if you stopped everybody in the arena here today and asked them how many jersey patch sponsors they can name for the Lakers or any NBA team, you might get zero.
"The reason I bring that up is I think people can overplay that. I think we're going to do it in a tasteful way. The University of Montana Grizzlies is going to be bigger than whatever sponsor logo is on there, right? But it also needs to be big enough that the company sees the value in it. So we'll strike that balance. It'll play out fine. I'm not overly concerned about it, because I think we're starting small and doing it the right way. But are we getting more commercialized? Yes, and in the situation we find ourselves in, we absolutely need to be that way."
