As jersey patch deals continue to sweep across college football, Kentucky Football is doing something different this year.
On Friday, UK announced that UK Invests will be the official jersey patch of Kentucky Football.
Beginning with tomorrow’s game against Youngstown State, the UK Invests logo will appear on football jerseys to elevate storytelling around one of UK’s fastest-growing student success programs.
Launched in 2022, UK Invests is a financial wellness program that combines financial education
with real-world opportunities to help UK students build greater financial security along with healthy saving and investing habits. You can check out the official UK Athletics press release for more information on UK Invests.
Now, on the surface, this deal looks highly questionable for UK, as the school is essentially paying itself for a jersey patch. Meanwhile, Tennessee Football just signed a 10-year jersey patch deal with First Horizon Bank, which is reportedly worth more than $120 million over the life of the deal.
So yeah, UK’s deal doesn’t exactly sound groundbreaking or fruitful at first glance, but there’s a good reason for this.
According to KSR’s Jack Pilgrim, this is just a one-year deal for football only, and it’s worth around $5 million. UK is essentially putting off a long-term deal until next year, when the school could potentially command bigger offers, so this UK Invests deal is temporary.
Part of that is due to UK’s national profile likely growing with a nine-game SEC schedule. Instead of a home game against Kent State this year that was previously set to take place before the SEC schedule change, potentially on something like SEC Network +, that was replaced with a game like Kentucky’s Week 3 matchup with Texas A&M that will be on either ESPN or ESPN2. That one week of extra national exposure could help UK secure a more lucrative long-term deal with someone next year.
That, and the hope of Will Stein continuing to elevate this program will make it more attractive for potential jersey patch partners in 2027.
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