Pissed about the patch?

One day after the Big 12 Conference announced its $20 million deal with Monster to be the conference’s “entitlement partner” for Big 12 football and men’s and women’s basketball, Kansas Athletics announced its own big-money partnership. 

The multiyear deal brokered with KU alum Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of tech company Ripple, will put a new XRP patch on the jersey of every KU athlete for the foreseeable future. 

The addition of the logo, which has been tailor-made in KU’s crimson and blue colors, stirred quite a reaction from the KU fan base and throughout the college athletics world. 

While the Monster deal will provide each Big 12 school with approximately $1.25 million per year — with its own patch and on-court/field logos, as well — the deal with XRP cryptocurrency is rumored to be worth four or five times that much on an annual basis to Kansas Athletics. 

KU did not disclose the financial terms of the partnership, but it’s clear that they view the move to add the XRP logo to KU’s jerseys as a major win. 

KU Athletic Director Travis Goff, in his first public reaction to the news drop on X.com, called it a “landmark partnership,” adding the advice, “Evolve or be left behind” to his post. 

KU Deputy AD Jason Booker, who heads up all of KU’s revenue generation initiatives, also hit up X to declare that the “strategic relationship” would be “a game changer for our department.” 

It’s no surprise that these guys feel this way about the deal. After all, it’s part of their jobs — and pretty much their No. 1 job — to make sure that KU has the funds to compete in the new era of college athletics, where NIL, revenue sharing and intense competition for athletes in the transfer portal rules the day. 

This move, love it or hate it, makes that easier. And that makes coaches happy, fans more expecting of wins and on down the line.

It’s also no surprise that many KU fans were irked by the news. 

Remember last year when news broke that FNBO bank was going to put its logo on the Allen Fieldhouse floor for a similar financial bump for the school? The reaction to that was a shitstorm. Wednesday’s news brought a similar reaction. And I get it. I really do. 

KU fans — many who have been rockin’ and chalkin’ for decades — view absolutely everything about their school and favorite teams as absolutely sacred. The court. The colors. The songs. The displays. And so much more.

So slapping a logo or a patch on anything KU related, to them, seems sacreligious. 

Here’s where we run into a problem. 

The reality of the situation in today’s college athletics landscape is that not accepting these types of deals would also be sacreligious. It also would be negligent, foolish, counterproductive and borderline career suicide. 

You don’t have to like any of that. But the sooner you understand it and accept it, the easier this will all be for you moving forward. 

The patches and logos and money-making opportunities big and small are here to stay. They have to be. And it’s the duty of Goff, Booker and a whole host of other KU employees — along with Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark — to not only ink these deals but also to seek them out and sign KU and the conference up for as many as possible. 

There are rules about that, too. For now, anyway. 

Per the NCAA rulebook, you’re only allowed two corporate patches on the jerseys during preseason and regular season competition, with one additional patch being allowed in the postseason. 

It’s unclear whether the Big 12/Monster partnership logo counts as one of those, but the XRP logo patch certainly does. And you can expect schools throughout the conference, and country, to follow KU down this path in the weeks, months and years to come. 

Like it or not, athletic departments simply cannot afford to pass up these potential revenue streams in this day and age. 

Some deals will be more lucrative than others, of course. And KU’s deal with Ripple/XRP likely got a major boost because of the school’s basketball brand and Garlinghouse’s deep connection to the school and the state. 

If your favorite school or team has to go this route — and they all will, evolve or be left behind, remember — doesn’t it make you feel at least a little better that the tie is to a proud alum and native Kansan? 

It’s not like we’re adding the Starbucks, Doritos or Taco Bell logo to the jerseys. 

And, from the looks of it, they were very thoughtful in making sure that the XRP logo blends in rather than obnoxiously stands out. 

 In addition to the patch part of the Ripple/XRP partnership, the news release indicated that the cryptocurrency company also will be involved with KU athletics by funding “financial and technology education programs for KU student-athletes and the campus community, covering both traditional finance and digital assets, and will expand its existing talent pipeline connecting Kansas graduates to careers across the technology industry.”

That’s a pretty cool investment in KU that goes well beyond the ego boost of seeing your company logo on your favorite team’s jersey. 

These moves might not cure all that ails you about your school soiling sacred ground. But they're also not nothing. 

These are the times. This is our world now. College sports isn’t hiding anything from you anymore. 

It’s entirely up to you whether you continue to follow along. 

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com