Five of the dozens of colleges and universities whose multimedia rights (MMR) agreements have expired in recent years have elected to take them back in-house. Those institutions chose to forego lucrative guarantees from sales agency partners to retain control of their intellectual property and a greater portion of sponsorship income.

The shift reflects a broader recalibration across college sports as athletic departments look for ways to offset rising costs tied to athlete compensation.

“There is an urgency for colleges to evolve, driven by the need to generate more revenue,” Christy Hedgpeth (president, Playfly Sports Properties) said.

The House Settlement alone has increased budgets by $20.5mm for the top spending schools. And speculation exists that revenue share number will only continue to climb in the years ahead. 

The University of Arizona (Arizona Sports Enterprises) and Clemson University (Clemson Ventures) have found success standing up affiliated revenue-generation engines. ASE revenues, for example, are up 140% versus where they stood with the school’s long-time third-party agency partner.

Still, it’s fair to wonder whether assuming primary responsibility for digital, radio, IP, and signage sales is the most prudent move for institutions seeking to maximize yield on their available inventory at this challenging juncture. 

There are significant costs and qualified risks in recruiting, training, and organizing dedicated human capital, and they are coupled with the unpredictable headwinds of the transfer portal, conference realignment, and ever-changing rules regarding athlete compensation.

“If you look at the annual growth rates across our college portfolio, especially of our newer partners which are in the upper teens to mid-twenties percentage versus an industry average of roughly 7%, it’s evident the human capital invested, best practices learned, and support services offered by leading third party MMR partners are difficult to match, let alone outperform,” Hedgpeth said.

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Historically, college athletics departments have not sought to maximize revenue potential the way professional teams do. Tradition, policy constraints, cultural norms, and limited infrastructure have all discouraged aggressive commercialization and evolution. 

“Whereas the pro teams have gone after every new category, whether it's crypto, AI, or sports betting, there are colleges that still have not approved alcohol,” Hedgpeth said.

However, the need to pay student athletes has forced schools to start thinking differently and behave more aggressively when it comes to monetization. 

That has led some of the more progressive universities and athletic directors to launch their own internal business arms. Others have signed new MMR agreements with large risk-reducing annual guarantees and some upside. 

Launching an internal commercial arm is an increasingly enticing proposition in an era of rising costs. It just doesn’t align with the long-standing norms of collegiate athletic department operations. 

Sure, those managing MMR negotiations in-house avoid paying lucrative commissions. However, it’s not as if those savings drop directly to the bottom line.

Operating sophisticated internal sales and partner management functions capable of competing with pro teams and leagues for dollars requires meaningful investment.

“It is expensive and time-consuming for schools to assemble enough dedicated, experienced talent in-house or perhaps more importantly, to resource those people appropriately,” Hedgpeth said. 

Particularly, at a time when athletic departments and challenger leagues across the landscape are looking for similar skill sets.

“Without the infrastructure and expertise MMR partners provide, schools are [also] not able to optimize asset values fully,” Hedgpeth said.

Playfly leverages comprehensive fan spending and viewership data across professional and collegiate sports, along with proprietary engagement insights, to justify increases in existing assets, develop new inventory, open emerging categories, and accelerate commercial expansion.

Top competitor, Learfield, is not as diversified a company. However, they too have proprietary data that can be leveraged in negotiations (think: ticketing through ownership of Paciolan, website development via Sidearm Sports, and their sales history with many athletic departments).

Few schools have access to or are willing to invest in the comparable inputs needed to maximize commercial returns.

“So, instead of data-backed insights being something that they lean into, they just sacrifice and opt not to have them,” Craig Sloan (president, Playfly Sports) said.

Additionally, institutions that bring sales functions fully in-house can face a strategic disadvantage. Brands are increasingly prioritizing efficiency and scale, often favoring multi-team or multi-market packages facilitated by 3^rd party commercial entities, leagues, and media parters. Institutions operating outside those bundled offerings risk being excluded from consideration if an equivalent regional or conference-wide asset is readily available for purchase through a consolidated option.

“I don't think what Arizona or Clemson has done is replicable at a large number of schools,” long-time professional and college senior executive John Brody said.

The debate over who should sell college assets is important—but it sits atop a larger reality: college MMR and school IP has long been undervalued. College sports match or exceed the professional ranks on key measures like fan avidity, sponsor loyalty, and audience reach.

“There is no greater connectivity than that of a current student, family, or recent graduate [to their school]. Fans surely love their pro teams, but they live and die with their alma mater. It’s just a different level of passion,” Brody said.

And yet, the average power four program takes in just ~$13mm/year in MMR sponsorship revenue. 

“Big four pro league teams generate anywhere from 3-5x that,” Hedgpeth said.

The discrepancy stems, in part, from third-party sales partners focusing on IP and signage in stadiums, rather than more traditional marketing assets, like gameday activations, original social content, and performance marketing.

“The schools themselves historically weren't equipped to deliver against those assets,” Nick Kelly (CEO, Encore Sports & Entertainment) said. “Now that [many of them] are maturing, they or their MMR partners can demand more because they can provide more services to brands.”

Unfortunately, resetting the market doesn’t happen overnight. The bulk of college rights owners are tied up in multi-year ticketing, sponsorship, F&B, and licensing agreements.

And it’s not even clear what assets schools will have left to monetize once those deals expire. With television rights values rising, conference media partnerships deepening, and private equity waiting on the sidelines, it’s easy to envision more assertive commissioners consolidating control over school rights on behalf of their most important national partner come the next negotiation cycle–the same way the big four leagues do.

“College football games are all national, so you really can follow the NFL model,” Brody said. 

So, where will meaningful revenue growth come from in the interim? 

Unlocking new marquee assets, as Arizona did with football stadium naming rights, is going to have the greatest impact on an athletic department’s P&L (think: newly approved jersey patches, helmets stickers, apron signage around court/field, on-field logos). There are also meaningful dollars to be captured creating new touch points for brand partners.

“We look at campus as part of the value set that a college or university offers,” Sloan said. “It’s not about just being inside the venue but participating with big activations in and around the school.”

While reaching ~100,000 fans on gameday in a large SEC stadium is undoubtedly valuable, gaining access to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to campus during other high-traffic event weekends, such as graduation or parents’ weekend, offers even greater commercial potential. 

Then there are ways to bring existing college sports fans closer to their favorite programs and monetize those interactions (think: fan fest tied to event). And look for development in and expansion of commercial categories too (think: NIL, premium, experiential, mixed-use real estate development and better use of venues for non-game-day events).

While those revenue streams have traditionally lived outside of what has been defined as pure multimedia rights, there is no reason why an MMR partner couldn’t help schools tap into those business lines. Expect future multimedia rights deals to look more like holistic commercial partnerships as college sports continues to professionalize.

On the latest episode of JohnWallStreet Presents: Big Business on Campus, a college sports podcast powered by Playfly Sports and sponsored by Short’s Sports Travel Logistics, JohnWallStreet Founder Corey Leff and Playfly Sports Chairman Michael Schreiber sit down with Weatherford Capital Founding Partner Drew Weatherford, IMG Academy CEO Brent Richard, and USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews to discuss the so-called “enrollment cliff” —a projected decline in college-age students that has started to materialize— and a solution to help navigate it.

📺 Watch the full video on JohnWallStreet’s YouTube Page.
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.