You’ve probably never heard of Grace College, “an accredited, Christ-centered institution of higher education located in the picturesque lakeside town of Winona Lake, Ind.” But the College will now go down in history’s annals as the first college or university to have an advertisement on their uniforms.
Yesterday, Zimmer Biomet (a medical technology firm) finalized a three-year “partnership” with Grace College to be their exclusive uniform advertiser. For the next three years, a Zimmer Biomet ad patch will be featured on all of Grace’s varsity athletic uniforms, including home, away and alternate uniforms.
Here’s how the ad will look on the team’s basketball jerseys:
The NAIA — the first athletic organization to pass Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) legislation — is the first college sports association to allow ads on uniforms during competition. The legislation was passed during April’s meeting of the NAIA’s National Administrative Council.
Grace President Dr. Drew Flamm said, “We are thrilled and grateful to announce this partnership between Grace and Zimmer Biomet. As far as we know this marks the first uniform sponsorship deal for any college in the United States. Zimmer Biomet has been an innovative and inspiring organization in our community, and we are thankful they have chosen to invest in our student-athlete experience.”
Of the “partnership” between the two entities, Grace and Zimmer note they have enjoyed a “strong connection within the community for decades.” Zimmer Bionet is located in Warsaw, Indiana, which is close to Grace College, and has been located there since their founding in 1927.
Grace Director of Athletics Chad Briscoe adds, “We are grateful for our partnership in the community with Zimmer Biomet. The innovative thinking by the NAIA continues to allow member institutions to create new revenue streams that will enhance the student-athlete experience.”
We’ve known and have been bracing for college/university uniform ads for several months, but the announcement by Grace College still is monumental. They may be the first to have uni ads, but they surely won’t be the last. The floodgates, as they say, have now opened.
I wasn’t expecting Ohio State or Alabama to the be first school to have uni ads, but the announcement by Grace College was equally unexpected. Now that the first domino has fallen, we can probably expect more of these “partnerships” in the very near future.
Your thoughts?
Here come your Fightin’ Billboards!
Whatever. So over all this crap. Why stop at one ad? Why not two, three for four? Go full NASCAR. At this point, it’s all just visial white noise. Don’t even see it anymore. Whatever starts in the pros trickles down to the colleges, and eventually high schools. Guarantee all schools will eventually be lining up at the trough.
Counterpoint: That G/helmet logo is clever and well-executed. So at least they have that going for them.
Straight up vile. Fully expected yet still a big bummer.
I would argue with the amount of money pumped in by athletic companies, that maker mark has been a paid advertisement. Nothing new here
Let’s go! Finally, Grace has some representation on this site! However, knowing this site, it’s probably not a good first impression for most.
(thumbs up emoji)
Outside my comfort zone. In fact, I still draw soccer jerseys without ads, so these so-called innovations are just noise by now.
Well, the first step on a slippery slope of college uniform ads. This one is small and unobtrusive plus it has a local connection. I expect the sponsor to pay for the NIL rights of the student athletes, right? The ultimate step will be renaming teams as I have said before. Prepare for the All State Insurance Buckeyes to play against the GM Wolverines for the Nike Big 10 title somewhere around 2030.
I would argue the first schools to wear an advertisement on their uniforms happened years ago. Bowl game patches have been a part of college football for a long time. Many bowl games are either named for a company for smaller games or have a presenting advertisement on their logo.
I would counter argue that every team wanted that one off patch and as such, nothing to be disappointed in having.
How valuable can a uniform sponsorship really be if no one has ever heard of the school, and they’re never on TV? What a waste of money by Zimmer….
One part could be the local visibility they get. The other is some unseen reward/connection that helps them financially. Laundering perhaps?
Regardless, we re now talking bout them… so it’s working to whatever degree.
Although this sucks having played at both a Div III school and a NAIA school I can tell you these funds are badly needed. Schools that small do not have the resources most major schools do.
I agree, this is not an ad, this is a sponsorship. It’s not much different from a little league team wearing the name of their local bail bonds company.
The upside is a school with fewer than 2,000 students in a town of fewer 5,000 residents probably sees direct benefit from the uniform advertisement money — unlike owners of professional teams that use ads to increase profit margins. Unless you need surgical orthopedic equipment, you’ve probably never heard of Zimmer Biomet… And unless you’re from Indiana or a fan of a team in the Crossroads League, you’ve probably never heard of Grace College. So, it seems like this “partnership” is more genuine to me. And as far as uniform patches go, this one doesn’t look all that different from a manufacturer’s mark. This could be much worse in so many way (and probably will be in just a few years).
Genuinely don’t even see the point of college sports anymore. Like on one hand I support the athletes getting paid for their labor. On the other hand, that also ruins the magic of college sports. So maybe the answer was, big time amateur sports are just impossible to begin with. You either go full commercialized, or if you want true amateur, it has to be small scale, no one making money.
Either way I’m done with it. To be honest I was always fair weather, I watch my school’s basketball team when they are good. But not anymore. Like at this point if I want to watch professional basketball I’ll just watch the NBA.
The Nike swoosh and other manufacturer’s logo have been on team uniforms for decades.
We can argue about whether or not that is “advertising,” but for UW purposes, we refer to that as a Maker’s Mark. Similar to how Ford puts the blue “Ford” logo on the cars it makes. Or Ralph Lauren puts the little polo pony on its shirts. They produced the product, so we do not consider them to be “advertising” on their own garment/car/etc.
Again, you can argue whether or not that counts as advertising, but for our discussions, it does not.
Why no “Mr Yuk” on these?
While I occasionally do use Mr. Yuk, that’s more of a Paul thing.