The Big Ten and Big 12 have partnered with PayPal to become their official platform for distributing revenue-sharing payments to athletes. The hefty new deal involves brand partnerships with several Big 12 athletes, as well as sponsorship of the Big 12 Championship Game.
The first-of-its-kind partnership in the new revenue-sharing era allows Big Ten and Big 12 schools to pay players via PayPal’s products as a result of the landmark, multi-billion House vs. NCAA settlement. In the days after the new rules have gone into effect, millions of dollars have already flowed through PayPal’s servers to athletes.
“About 50% of students at these schools are already on Venmo,” PayPal chief marketing officer Geoff Seeley told CBS Sports. “Then these guys needed the support of a payment partner to enable NIL and rev share. It’s a marriage made in heaven… literally millions of dollars moved from schools to athletes seamlessly at rapid speed, incredibly within hours of the announcement coming out.”
The Big Ten and Big 12 figure to benefit substantially financially as a result of the deals. The Big 12 will receive nearly $100 million over five years as a result of the partnership, sources tell CBS Sports. The discussions initially started as the brand considered purchasing naming rights for the conference. The Big 12 opted eventually elected not to sell, instead agreeing to this partnership.
“You’re changing behavior in the whole ecosystem right now,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said. “You’re no longer working with vendors, but you really want partners in this new age of collegiate athletics. So we had to educate [our schools] a little bit on what a partnership with PayPal and Venmo would look like. But they all got on board. They understand that dispersing money needs to be done with a partner that can deliver security and reliability, and there’s no one better in the industry.”
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss told CBS Sports that the company is in discussions for other partnerships. Venmo, a PayPal brand, will serve as presenting partner of the Big Ten Rivalry Series and will be an official partner for the Big 12’s championship events starting this season. Texas Tech softball player NiJaree Canady, TCU women’s basketball player Olivia Miles and Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt have signed on as brand ambassadors.
The price tag is a significant benefit as Big 12 schools try to find additional sources of revenue heading into the hyper-competitive revenue sharing era. Each school will receive north of $1 million. As part of the partnership, Venmo will create branded debit cards for the Big 12 schools and hold on-campus activations. Additionally, Big 12 schools will open the door for Venmo to be used at point-of-sale locations across college campuses.
“Our relationship is not just with the athletes or the sport, but with the whole campus,” Seeley said. “That’s what we can start to leverage is to really stitch Venmo even more deeply into the college campus experience.”
Yormark opened his tenure as Big 12 commissioner by claiming the conference was “open for business,” and the deal with PayPal is only the latest addition to the portfolio. The league has also signed notable deals with Microsoft, the WWE and TuneIn Radio since Yormark took over the conference.
Read the full article here
