Michigan State's Jersey Patch Deal Is Already Aging Poorly
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Being one of the first people to the ad party may have actually not been the best idea.
All of Michigan State's sports teams will have an advertisement on their uniforms this coming season for the first time. The school, through its recently launched affiliated company Spartan Ventures, agreed to a 10-year deal with MSUFCU. Sources inside the Michigan State athletic department have confirmed to Spartan Nation previous reporting of a 10-year deal. And told us about the financial parameters, "an amount that could reach $40 million."
MSU was the first Big Ten school to announce a deal across all sports. The contract is already aging poorly about a month and a half later.
Comparing MSU's Deal to Other Schools
The deal already doesn't seem great on two counts: both the length and the annual dollar figure don't make Michigan State look all that great. MSU's decade-long agreement with MSUFCU is far too long.
Unless there is some way for the school to renegotiate or even get out of the deal with MSUFCU -- it's tough to know this, since contracts through Spartan Ventures aren't subject to FOIA -- the Spartans are locked into their current rate through 2036. That super-long-term commitment feels like the wrong move to make in the lightning-quick arms race going on in college sports.
Illinois' deal is probably the kind of agreement Michigan State should have sought. The Fighting Illini agreed to a jersey patch deal with Busey Bank that will reportedly net Illinois $30 million over five years.
MSU and Illinois are pretty comparable in valuation. The Spartans' recent football struggles, which have coincided with Illinois' rise in the sport, haven't helped, but CNBC rated Illinois and Michigan State as the ninth- and 11th-most valuable athletic departments in the Big Ten in December 2025.
These two schools, financially, should be peers. But since MSU and former AD J Batt jumped into the jersey patch pool before everybody else in the Big Ten without any other agreements to go off of, it essentially set the market rate for everyone else in the conference. Illinois, knowing it has a slight edge on Michigan State as a whole right now, got to demand $6 million per year instead of $4 million, and the Fighting Illini smartly only locked itself to its current rate for five years, rather than 10.
Wisconsin and Ohio State are the only other Big Ten teams that have inked jersey patch deals at the time this article is being written, but that list will probably grow by the time the football season kicks off in September. It is impossible to compare MSU's deal with Wisconsin's and Culver's, as the terms of that agreement haven't been publicly released or reported anywhere.
Clear Difference Between Tier 1 and Everyone Else
Michigan State was never going to get the kind of money Ohio State will receive from its recently announced deal with JPMorgan Chase, but the Buckeyes' deal with the national bank puts MSU's to shame a bit. OSU will bring in $17 million a year from the ad on its uniforms, more than four times what Michigan State will get.
Notre Dame also agreed to a deal with SoFi, reportedly worth $18-20 million a year, potentially five times as much annual money as MSU. The length of Ohio State's deal isn't clear, but the Fighting Irish's contract is reportedly six years long.
This kind of money will probably be too much for other upper-tier athletic departments to pass up. There is value in maintaining tradition, but is it worth an additional $15+ million for essentially doing nothing? Probably not.
The desperate chase for more revenue and more money is inevitably only going to separate schools at the top of the valuation table from everybody else. Pretty much any revenue stream Michigan State creates for itself, those schools can simply do the same thing, but for even more money. If MSU sells an ad on its football field for, say, $2 million per year, Michigan or Oregon could turn around and fetch twice that.
Unforced Error
One of the worst parts is that Michigan State gave up more than it needed to. The Spartans also allowed MSUFCU to place its logo on the bumper of the football team's helmets, a practice that doesn't appear to be the case in other deals across the Big Ten and the country. MSUFCU also gets a green or white border around its patch, which makes it stand out. Busey Bank's patch with Illinois and Chase's patch with Ohio State don't have a border and are much less invasive.
There are some things where it's great to be innovative or be the first team in your conference to do. Selling an advertisement, hardly a creative way to generate revenue, is not one of those things. Hindsight is 20/20, but it certainly feels like MSU would have been better off waiting to see a few other schools agree to deals so it could better figure out the market rate before agreeing to one itself.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.
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