By Evan Alvarez

McDonald’s Ligue 1, La Liga EA Sports, Barclays Premier League (formerly), and Serie A Enilive are recent examples of European and English soccer leagues signing title sponsors for their respective leagues - effectively changing the name of the leagues entirely when discussing them. This has been in place across the pond for several years now. While it hasn’t taken a strong hold on American sports yet, it may be coming very quickly with the new animal that is college football.

Inspired by a recent Sports Illustrated article by Pat Forde, we wanted to look at this phenomenon of conference/league sponsorships and apply it to college football. With the way things are going in the college football world, this may very well be a real thing in just a few years. So, let’s check back and see how many predictions we get right here.

Quick note, for the purposes of fun, I’m going to exclude any banks, insurance companies, or any obvious contenders like Dr. Pepper, etc. as sponsors. These companies will very likely get into the mix, but this article is meant for the Pop-Tarts of the world to shine brightest.

Without further ado, let’s get into it! In alphabetical order, we’ll start with the American Athletic Conference.

Whataburger American Athletic Conference

Whataburger and the American Athletic Conference are both headquartered in Texas. Additionally, the American Athletic Conference boasts a few schools in the state of Texas, adding to the appeal. Most importantly, however, the vast majority of other schools in the WAAC (the Whataburger American Athletic Conference) are in key states where Whataburger is looking to expand. What better what to capitalize on expansion plans than to sponsor one of your target state’s favorite college football team’s conferences? Burgers will be flowing heavily.

Wawa Atlantic Coast Conference

I promise the ‘W-lettered food chains’ is not a trend, I just think this fits too well. Wawa is a beloved east coast gas station/deli/food/snack/everything chain that is also planning on expanding directly into other WACC states like Kentucky and North Carolina. To get their name out and draw in customers, it makes a lot of sense to attach their name to the favorite sports teams in the area.

Fritos Scoops! Big Ten Conference

What do you think of when you think of the Mid-West United States? Corn! Thus, America’s corn chip - the Frito, takes center stage. A huge company like Frito-Lay will likely want a piece of the college football action, and pushing Fritos in a corn-rich area of the United States makes perfect sense. I like the idea of Frito-Lay pushing their “Fritos Scoops!” too, as they can play up the ‘chips and dip’ culture of football along with the ‘scoop and score’ aspect of fumbles in-game.

Tesla Big 12 Conference

I’m not particularly sold on Tesla’s personally like other people are, but I do see a big fit for a sponsorship like this. Tesla is hoping to grow market share and is currently headquartered in Texas, home to four existing members of the TB12 (oh no, I just realized I did that. Is this a copyright issue with Tom Brady? That’s something for the lawyers of Tesla and the Big 12 to figure out abbreviation wise. For now let’s just keep going.) Along with the Texas connection, I could see Tesla running an ad showing that a Tesla can drive itself to every campus across the TB12 on one single charge, or something like that. Lots of possibilities there!

American Airlines Conference USA

This might be my favorite one fit wise. American Airlines and Conference USA are both headquartered in Dallas, Texas and both have a variation of ‘America’ in their name. Personally, I love this fit. American Airlines could offer cheap flights to fans flying to other in-conference campuses on game day. Also, they could be the official charter planes for all conference teams on travel days. Given the relatively close locations of AACUSA member schools, this could be a profitable endeavor for American Airlines in the long run, as they’ll gain loyal fliers while also not burning significant amounts of fuel.

Rock & Roll Mid-American Conference

What’s better than some good old fashioned MACtion! Nothing, I’ll tell you. The MAC has grown a crazed audience among college football fans for its exciting and dramatic brand of football, not unlike the crazed audiences rock & roll bands have seen over the past several decades for their own extraordinary talents. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Mid-American Conference share a home in America’s crossroads. With other genres of music taking center stage in pop culture recently, this sponsorship will allow the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (and Rock & Roll in general) to reclaim some of that market share through storytelling, artistic advertisements, and special collaborations to remind the world that Rock & Roll is not dead. This partnership would also encourage tourists to visit the Hall of Fame itself, boosting revenue, exposure, and donations for the Hall over time.

The North Face Mountain West Conference

The North Face, owned by parent company VF Corporation, is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The North Face (and VF Corporation) are in an incredibly saturated “outdoor clothing” market with tons of competitors like REI, Columbia, Eddie Bauer, Patagonia, and even Nike, Adidas, etc. Getting in front of college football fans’ eyes who live in mountainous and snowy areas like Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado along with outdoorsy, warm, and hike-heavy areas like California, Arizona, and Nevada gives The North Face a platform to push their products and gain market share in this competitive industry. On a much smaller scale, their headquarters also presents a perfect location to attract students from nearby TNFMWC (The North Face Mountain West Conference - weird abbreviation, I know) schools for recruitment purposes.

Pac-12 Conference

There are two teams currently in the Pac-12 Conference, Oregon State University and Washington State University. They plan to play in the Pac-12 Conference for at least the 2024/2025 season, but honestly, I don’t see a company attaching their name to this conference as it may cease to be a conference entirely in two years’ time. There are rumors of a merger with the Mountain West, in which case I’d still roll with The North Face as a sponsor, but a lot needs to shake out here before the path becomes more clear.

Google Pixel Southeastern Conference

I wanted to put in a fun snack food, restaurant, or non-Dr. Pepper drink here to be creative, but this is the SEC. According to their tagline, “it just means more.” We can’t get cute here, we need to be serious, which is why I’ve slotted Google in as a sponsor who can meet the monetary demands of sponsoring the SEC. Similar to the Big Ten with Frito-Lay, this needs to be a company with deep pockets, which Google certainly has. Additionally, depending on where you look, Google’s top competitor on phones, Apple, boasts 50-55% adoption among U.S. consumers. All other phone brands (Samsung, Motorola, Google, etc.) combine for that remaining 45-50% of market share. Thus, Google’s phone brand, the Google Pixel, has some ground to make up. Sponsoring one of the top college football conferences in the SEC should help get more eyes on their product, boosting revenue, market share, and ROI in the long run.

Ray-Ban Sun Belt Conference

Perfectly named, the Sun Belt Conference’s members are in some of the hottest and sunniest places in the entire United States. I think you could put any company related to the beach and/or sun in here - whether it’s a boating company, solar, swimsuits, ice cream, etc - and it would work. Ray-Ban, however, makes sense too as its parent company, Luxottica Group SpA, boasts strong revenues worldwide to afford such a sponsorship. They could also encourage RBSBC (Ray-Ban Sun Belt Conference) fans to purchase exclusive, college-specific sunglass lines where a % of sales go to each respective university’s NIL fund with every purchase.

Thanks for reading! Keep up with Hoosier Huddle all summer long for all your Indiana Hoosiers football news, opinions, reports, stats, and more!

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