Robert Morris debuts first-of-its-kind jersey patch partnership with YouTuber

Robert Morris wants to be a viral basketball program in 2026-27.

The small suburban Pittsburgh college has had success on its own merits in recent years after a transition from the Northeast Conference to the Horizon League in 2020-21. The Colonials reached the NCAA tournament as a No. 15 seed in 2024-25 and won over 20 games last year while just missing out on a return to the Big Dance.

Now they’re working with local creator Cullen Honohan on a first-of-its-kind jersey patch partnership in which the primary exchange isn’t money, but exposure. Both to fans and potential recruits.

More college sports: Matt Campbell’s first big move at Penn State isn’t Xs and Os. It’s changing the conversation

Honohan, who lives in the city’s Strip District, has built a huge audience for his All Hail Cullen portfolio of basketball-focused social media accounts. He has over one million followers on TikTok and is nearing half a million on Instagram. Add about 370,000 subscribers on YouTube, and his reach is impressive.

Robert Morris, meanwhile, has struggled to draw fans despite putting a solid product on the floor. The Colonials averaged just 1,411 spectators across 17 home games at the UPMC Events Center, which opened in 2019 and was built to accommodate up 4,000.

Honohan wants to show that he can change that dynamic and build a greater following both locally and nationally. He plans to develop a video series following the team throughout its upcoming season. In exchange, his logo will appear on the team’s jerseys for each game.

“We want this to be the best basketball spectacle in the city,” Honohan said in a recent interview with USA Today.

Easier said than done. Pittsburgh is a notoriously difficult basketball market. There hasn’t been a viable professional franchise in town in decades. And even Pitt, which made the NCAA tournament 13 times in the 15-year period from 2001-02 to 2015-16, has had trouble filling its building since its move to the ACC a little over a decade ago.

That hasn’t stopped Honohan from setting down roots in the city. While he frequently travels out of state to interview top prospects and major college players for his social accounts, the Winter Park, Fla., native has embedded himself with the small but passionate grassroots hoops community through AAU programs.

He’s also developed a YouTube series focused on Luca Federico, a player at Chartiers Valley High School, south of the city. Federico was previously unranked by college recruiting services, but has since snagged multiple major college offers, a three-star rating at 247 Sport and tens of thousands of social media followers.

That work caught the eye of coach Andy Toole and Stephen Morrison, RMU’s associate athletic director for marketing and fan experience. It was the program that made the initial overture to work with Honohan, and the plan announced this week has flowed from subsequent meetings between the two sides.

It’s an innovative move that Toole told USA Today he might not have considered for his program a decade ago. Many coaches might view such outside attention as invasive and distracting for players. But Toole feels it’s important for programs to stand out in the age of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals reshaping the sport.

“There’s been radical change to college sports in general over the last four to five years,” Toole said. “How can we continue to adapt to the new landscape? I think content creators are part of that. It, I think, can help our players continue to become more attractive, and build a bigger brand and have a better experience.”

The reaction he’s received from players – past, present and possibly future – has been positive. Friends, likewise, have texted to let him know that their children have seen Honohan’s video announcing the partnership and asked questions about the school that is named for one of America’s Founding Fathers and a signatory to both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Toole hopes Honohan’s large following of high school players will be asking questions, too.

While the headline-grabbing tactic of putting a YouTube creator’s logo on a jersey is unique, the underlying value proposition RMU hopes to make is a fairly old school one that emphasizes things beyond the dollars and cents involved in playing basketball there.

“I think, at the end of the day, still being able to create relationships, show positive impacts, have positive outcomes, help people develop and grow, I still think are valuable,” Toole said. “I think you still have to be able to show those kind of things to people. And this is a way to kind of show that, right?

“Show some of the interaction between players and coaches. Show the experience that our players have in a way that they might not have been able to see before. And I think that can attract some of the right people, not only to our program, but then also to our university as a whole.”

Honohan plans to put those angles – and not himself – front and center. He expects his role to be more like a host than the focus of the videos. The tone will be less like a Mr. Beast stunt video and more like HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” he said. Neither side wants it to be a gimmick.

Maybe some will still see it that way. Honohan lamented that the distinction between “influencer” and “creator” tends to get blurred in the social media economy.

He’s nevertheless excited to have the buy-in of the program to do things at RMU this fall that aren’t happening quite like this anywhere else. The partnership may also include activations with nearby brands and appearances by some prominent local celebrities to get people out to games.

“Everybody there is just so incredibly open to doing the most creative idea,” Honohan said. “I think that’s what you need to do right now, especially as a mid major in college basketball, to be able to get in front of the most people and get in front of the right eyes when it comes to recruiting, sponsorship and everything along the line.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Robert Morris debuts first-of-its-kind jersey patch partnership with YouTuber

Read the full article here