Money, money, money, money, whoever has the most of it wins the game.
The games.
College football games. College basketball games. The games of life.
And doesn’t the Big Allstate 12 Conference or the Allstate 12 Conference know it.
The … what?
Yeah, it looks like the conference heretofore known as the Big 12, the one that Utah and BYU will be members of next season, is seeking a naming rights deal with Allstate or some other company that would pay the league, according to reports, somewhere between $30 million and $50 million annually, maybe more. That money would then be divided between the 16 member institutions. The league is also considering a deal with a private equity investment firm, Action Network has reported, that would pay the league upward of $1 billion for 20 percent ownership in the conference.
The question is: Is selling your name like selling your soul?
It’s never been done before, at least not by a college league.
Another question: If you sell 20 percent of your conference, who’s the straw that stirs your league’s drink moving forward? Who’s the powerbroker? Who’s beholden to whom?
Each of the aforementioned is a move to find more revenue streams for schools in a league that is attempting to keep up with the Big Ten and the SEC, outfits that pay out more than twice as much to their schools annually in media deals as the Big 12 currently does.
It is said that most of the 10 FBS leagues are chasing naming rights deals, as well. Picture it, the Popeye’s Chicken SEC, the Purina Dog Chow ACC, the General Motors Big Ten, the Kum and Go Mountain West. It’s the world of college sports in which we now live. Deal with it as deals get done.
Get paid or get beat.
When it comes to cash being handed out via naming rights, dignity fell by the wayside long ago. Everything is brought to you by something, and in doing so, names of bowl games and baseball and football stadiums and basketball and hockey arenas have become marketing whirlwinds.
In the past couple of decades, the home of the Jazz has gone from the Delta Center to EnergySolutions Arena to Vivint Smart Home Arena back to the Delta Center again. Even segments during all sorts of games in all sorts of leagues in all sorts of sports broadcast on TV and radio, bits like updates and editorial commentary and interviews can be sponsored by and named after businesses like, I dunno, Shamrock Meats or Passmore Gas and Propane or Hindenburger Grill.
All things are up for sponsorship nowadays — if the price is right.
Maybe each of us could sell our given names if a company, a retailer, a local eatery paid us enough. Would you sell and change your name, transfer it for a fee to be called, say, Sam Salt Lake Tribune or Charlie Chipotle or Billy Burger King?
A producer at a local radio station for which I worked was once offered $15,000 by Mark Cuban to have the Dallas Mavericks logo tattooed on his forehead. Adjusted for inflation, that was probably about $25 grand now. He declined.
The Big 12 will likely not decline. Turn down cash offered? Fat chance. It’s open for business. The conference wants, no, thinks it needs, the extra moola to compete at the top levels of modern college football and basketball. New revenue streams, baby. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been candidly talking about that for months.
Money, money, money, money, whoever’s got the most of it wins.
A corporate logo tattoo on a conference’s face en route? It’s a big deal that’s no big deal.
Dignity’s got nothing, not a durn thing, to do with it.
