Time is moving too fast. College Football, and college sports in general, have undergone massive changes since the COVID-19 pandemic, and, quite frankly, for the last two decades, but there may be one on the horizon that will crush certain classic fanbases.
College Sports Wire's Lauren Beasley gave a shoutout to the Auburn Tigers, Georgia Bulldogs, and Alabama Crimson Tide fanbases as those that'd be most resistant to the biggest imminent change coming to the sport: advertising on jerseys as part of the sport's expanded rev-share model. The LSU Tigers recently announced that Woodside Energy will have a patch on their jerseys starting during the 2026-27 athletic calendar. At some point, the South Carolina Gamecocks will imminently announce their own patches for Blanchard CAT and Blanchard Rental. Connect the dots, and you'll realize that if/when the arrangement is successful for those schools, the entire SEC and the other Power 4 conferences will be on board.
As Beasley points out, college sports is about to follow the professional sports model, because profits are what drives the product these days, not respecting long-standing traditions that gave the sport a separate identity from its non-amateur counterpart.
"The fan bases in the SEC are famously protective of their programs' identity. Uniforms at schools like Alabama, Georgia, and Auburn are treated almost as heirlooms, symbols of continuity in a rapidly changing sport. The notion of corporate branding encroaching on that sacred space could stir debate among purists concerned about creeping commercialization," Beasley wrote.
"Yet the college football world has been moving in this direction for years, from the expansion of television deals to the on-field advertising, the question isn't whether commercialization exists. It's how visible it becomes, and uniform patches may be only the beginning.
"Industry observers anticipate that as schools grow more comfortable with visible sponsorship, conversations could expand to even more forms of branding. The trajectory of college athletics mirrors the professional leagues more and more, where uniform advertising began modestly before becoming a standard revenue component. In the SEC, where innovation often follows competitive necessity, adaptation tends to happen quickly once financial benefits become clear."
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College sports, like the world, are in hell
There will be nothing enjoyable about seeing ads on jerseys. It's just another reminder of how dysphoric this world is. Watching College Football should be an escape for those watching it on a Saturday. Now, there will be some who are reminded of their 9-5 gigs while watching their alma mater play.
No escapism. Just commerce, baby.
Nothing sports or entertainment-related has benefited from this so far. Fans just don't like seeing jerseys tainted with a company owned by someone who can't even watch sports and not make it about themselves or their business.
When you can't even make college sports about the kids who attend the college you're watching the sports being played at, you have an issue. A dreadful, existential one that seemingly has no happy ending unless you're already in the 1% reaping the benefits of this world.
We don't have to go back in time before there was in-helmet communication or instant replays. Soon, though, we'll all wish we weren't given another reminder that our world is driven by greed -- and at the expense of kids who always dreamed of these moments and now can't live in a world where it happens primarily for them.