Oklahoma State is on the cusp of one of the more unique sponsorship agreements in college sports. The school announced a three-year deal with the Osage Nation that will feature an Osage jersey patch added for all OSU athletics teams beginning this fall. The involved parties declined to share specific financial information. An official announcement is expected on Tuesday.
“Every athletic department right now is looking for ways to generate revenue,” Brakston Brock, Oklahoma State Senior Associate AD/NIL Strategy & Revenue Generation, told Sports Business Journal. “There are some industries where sponsorships and logos on jerseys and fields and things are not new. It is new to college athletics, but [AD Chad Weiberg] likes to say ‘It’s just another lever that we can pull.’ It’s another opportunity to get us closer to where we want to be, make us more competitive on the field.”
The deal, which was brokered by Oklahoma State’s Learfield outfit, Cowboy Sports Properties, has been months in the making. The school initially vetted four or five private companies for a traditional sponsorship play before Brock and head football coach Eric Morris were introduced to Brian Parrish, CEO of the Osage Nation Gaming Enterprise.
Parrish, who died last month, met with Brock, Morris and Steve Keasler, OSU’s special assistant to the head coach, to talk through possible partnership opportunities -- jersey patch included. Parrish was interested and discussions continued from there.
“Brian was our point of contact from the jump and basically when he said that they were interested in hearing a pitch on sponsorship, we took that conversation and started that down that path,” Brock said. “And Brian just from the jump was probably one of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever dealt with.”
There were symmetries between the Osage Nation and Oklahoma State that became readily apparent over the course of early talks. Kimberly Pearson, CEO of Osage Casinos and Hotels, is an OSU grad. Osage Principal Chief-Elect Joe Tillman is played football at Oklahoma State from 1978-1981. The Osage Casino Hotel Student Union in North Hall, which opened in 2020, has also become a hub for students on Oklahoma State’s campus.
“The Osage Nation obviously has a long, long history in the state of Oklahoma in our country, but also in a relationship with Oklahoma State that goes back decades and is much more significant than simply a sponsorship partnership around a jersey,” Learfield EVP Andrew Wheeler told SBJ. “That’s really what this reflects, decades of partnership. This is a very high profile way to recognize that partnership and to tell some stories around what that looks like for a proud people and for a proud state.”
Oklahoma State is the first Big 12 school to sell a jersey patch sponsorship and the 11th Learfield client to do so, including Arkansas, Army, Marshall, Memphis, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
