Kansas Athletics announced it would partner with Ripple, a blockchain-based enterprise solution spanning traditional and digital finance. The partnership will land an XRP Cryptocurrency patch on every jersey worn by University of Kansas athletic teams across the board.
We all know what’s going on here: it’s all about the money. Does that make this announcement any less annoying for the fans and sports lovers around the world? Absolutely not.
In today’s college athletic climate, you have to be innovative and try to stay ahead of the game. Kansas may be doing that here, following professional sports leagues that have been doing so for years. Look no further than just up the highway from Lawrence, Kansas, and the Kansas City Royals. The Royals added a QT (QuikTrip) patch to their jerseys last season. It was initially met with pushback, but the team and company have made some fun promos out of it, and now most fans don’t have an issue with it. I’m sure the Jayhawks are hoping for the same after the initial backlash that will surely take place.
29 of 30 NBA teams have sponsor patches on the front of their jerseys. The Portland Trail Blazers, the lone NBA team without a jersey sponsor, have had jersey sponsors in previous seasons. Every MLS team has a sponsor on the front of its jersey. Last season in the NHL, 28 of 32 teams had jersey sponsors, and all teams had helmet sponsors. The NFL is the only professional league in America that doesn’t allow jersey sponsorships.
This is the evolution of sports over the past decade. Kansas doesn’t want to fall behind and joins Oklahoma State as the second Big 12 team to add a sponsor patch to its jerseys. Other Big 12 teams will certainly follow, grabbing their own presenting jersey sponsors. The terms of the deal between Ripple and Kansas Athletics were not disclosed, but could be anywhere between $1 million and $12 million annually.
This announcement from the University of Kansas comes on the heels of the Big 12 Conference’s own partnership with Monster Energy. At Big 12 media days, it was announced that every Big 12 program will place Monster Energy patches on football jerseys as well as men’s and women’s basketball jerseys. Monster is now the official energy drink of the conference and will also be the title sponsor of Big 12 media days for football and basketball. You’ll also see the Monster Energy brand on football fields and basketball courts. Each Big 12 school will get $1 million annually from this deal.
With the way the transfer portal, essentially free agency every offseason, plays into recruiting, these deals could help put more money into the talent pool to keep their programs competitive. For Kansas, the additions to the football stadium are expensive, and maybe this can help put a dent in paying off some of this project over the next several years. For this partnership, specifically with the Cryptocurrency company, we are being told it will enhance educational programs for KU student-athletes and the campus community, both in traditional and digital finance, and help build a pipeline for graduates into careers across the technology industry.
No matter what anyone says or how these schools or the conference as a whole tries to spin this as being about and for the student-athletes, we all know the truth: it’s all about the money. Sure, it’s just a slight inconvenience and an eyesore for the fans and consumers. It’s more annoying than anything for all of us regular folks out here, but it just goes to show that there isn’t anything that can’t be sold.
Yes, there can be benefits for everyone involved, from the power players to the coaches to the student-athletes, but it is all about generating the most money possible. How it gets divided up and distributed is yet to be seen. Not that it hadn’t already, but greed has officially taken hold of the Big 12 Conference. That money-hungry power play by both schools and the conference as a whole isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, with more sponsorships to be bid on and sold now and moving ahead in the future.
