Tennessee’s First Horizon partnership is the latest sign that one of college sports’ newest sponsorship assets has become one of its most in demand.

The University of Tennessee is putting a sponsor on its football jersey for the first time—and First Horizon Bank is making a major investment to get there. Tennessee Athletics has expanded its 34-year relationship with First Horizon in a 10-year agreement reportedly worth more than $120 million. The deal makes First Horizon the official jersey patch sponsor for University of Tennessee football, as well as volleyball, soccer, track and field, golf, tennis, cross country, swimming and diving, and rowing. This partnership was facilitated in collaboration with the Vol Network, a division of Learfield, the multimedia rightsholder for Tennessee Athletics.

And the patch is just one part of it. The expanded partnership also includes student-athlete influencer marketing initiatives and premium entitlement spaces at Neyland Stadium and Lindsey Nelson Stadium. It’s a significant deal on its own, but for brand marketers, it’s even more interesting in context.

A Market That Barely Existed a Month Ago

Commercial jersey patches have only been permitted in Division I college sports since August 1, when new NCAA rules took effect allowing schools to add up to two commercial logos of up to four square inches each to uniforms and apparel during preseason and regular-season competition.

Brands and schools haven’t wasted much time. Even before the rule officially took effect, some of college sports’ biggest properties were locking in major partners. Ohio State announced a deal with JPMorganChase reportedly worth $17 million annually. Then Notre Dame announced a six-year partnership with SoFi reportedly worth between $18 million and $20 million per year. Now Tennessee has joined them with its First Horizon agreement.

The agreements aren’t apples-to-apples. Each includes assets and activations beyond the jersey patch itself, so the reported deal prices shouldn’t be interpreted as the price of four square inches of uniform real estate. But the scale of the deals is notable: In roughly a month, college jersey patches have gone from a hypothetical new revenue stream to the centerpiece of eight-figure annual sponsorship agreements at some of the most recognizable properties in college sports.

And that raises an interesting question: Just how valuable could this new asset become?

Tennessee Shows Why Brands Are Paying Up

For First Horizon, Tennessee offers a pretty compelling case study in what a brand can potentially get from a college jersey partnership. Tennessee enters the 2026 football season having sold out 27 consecutive games at 101,915-seat Neyland Stadium.

In 2025 alone, according to Tennessee Athletics, 713,405 fans attended Tennessee’s seven home football games, ranking fourth in the FBS and second in the SEC in total attendance. But the size of Vol Nation becomes even more apparent when you look beyond football. For the third consecutive year, Tennessee led the nation in combined attendance across football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball. More than 1.18 million fans attended 37 home events in those sports during the 2025-26 season—more than 138,000 ahead of second-place Texas A&M.

For a brand marketer, that kind of fan loyalty matters. The jersey patch creates repeated exposure to an audience that isn’t simply watching a team; these fans are buying season tickets, filling venues across multiple sports and returning year after year. First Horizon is now attaching itself to that relationship in one of the most visible places possible.

The Patch Is the Headline. The Partnership Is the Strategy.

That may be the most important lesson from the first wave of college jersey patch deals: Brands aren’t simply buying four square inches of fabric. First Horizon’s Tennessee deal includes student-athlete influencer marketing and premium venue entitlements. SoFi’s Notre Dame partnership includes support for the school’s “4 for Forever” student-athlete development initiative, including financial education and career development. JPMorganChase’s Ohio State relationship spans all 36 varsity programs and extends beyond athletics into broader university initiatives.

The patch may be the most visible manifestation of these partnerships, but its real value could be its ability to serve as the anchor for something much larger. Instead of purchasing a collection of individual assets—signage here, digital content there, an athlete activation somewhere else—a brand can potentially build an integrated platform around the most visible asset a school has to sell.

And unlike many sponsorship assets, the jersey travels. It appears in the stadium, on television broadcasts, across social media, in highlights, photography and news coverage, potentially across multiple teams throughout the athletic calendar. That makes the patch both an asset and an amplifier for everything around it.

Financial Services Is Making an Early Move

There’s another pattern emerging from the biggest deals: financial services brands are moving aggressively. First Horizon has Tennessee. SoFi has Notre Dame. JPMorganChase has Ohio State. That may not be a coincidence.

College sports gives financial brands access to several valuable audiences at once: students beginning their financial lives, alumni with decades-long relationships to their universities, affluent donors and season-ticket holders, and student-athletes navigating an increasingly complex world of NIL and revenue sharing.

But the Tennessee deal suggests another potential advantage. First Horizon isn’t arriving at Tennessee because jersey patches suddenly became available; the bank has been the Official Bank of the Vols for more than three decades. The patch represents an escalation of an existing relationship rather than the beginning of a new one.

That history matters in college sports, where fans can be particularly protective of their teams’ traditions. As schools introduce commercial branding onto uniforms for the first time, brands that already have credibility with the institution and its fan base may be particularly well positioned to claim the most visible inventory. The jersey may be new. The relationship doesn’t have to be.

What Brand Marketers Should Watch Next

We are only just entering the college jersey patch era, which makes it far too early to know exactly where the market will settle. But the first deals are already providing clues: The biggest properties can command serious money, the patch is being packaged into much broader partnerships, brands with existing institutional relationships may have an advantage, and the strongest opportunities may be at schools that combine national media exposure with unusually deep fan loyalty.

Most importantly, brands appear willing to invest before there are years of performance data proving exactly what a college jersey patch is worth. For decades, the college uniform was largely off limits to sponsors. Now one of the most visible pieces of inventory in college sports is suddenly available—and if the first month is any indication, brands and schools are going to find out what it’s worth very quickly.