A New Monthly Fan Revenue Model Has Spread to 13 Campuses in a Year

Welcome back. Earlier this month, a start-up carrier began selling Kentucky-branded phone plans, with a share of every monthly bill going to the university. Today’s feature covers the carrier behind the plans and the schools that have signed on over the past year.

Earlier this month, the University of Kentucky went into the wireless business, launching Kentucky Mobile with the start-up carrier Collegiate Mobile. The plans run on T-Mobile’s 5G network at $15 to $45 a month, with separate pricing for students, university employees, alumni and fans. A share of each payment goes to the university, and customers choose at signup whether it supports UK Athletics, student scholarships or campus and community programs.

Four days later, Columbia introduced its own version, Roar Mobile, bringing the model to 13 campuses in just over a year, in the SEC, Big Ten, Big East, Sun Belt and Ivy League.

A year of launches

Collegiate Mobile, founded in 2025 by its chief executive, Joe Phillips, introduced its first two school-branded plans in August 2025 at Washington and Oregon State. Washington’s athletic director, Pat Chun, called Husky Mobile an “industry-first mobile partnership” in the school’s announcement, and Auburn followed with War Eagle Mobile in December.

California launched Bears Mobile in January, and plans at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Michigan and Cincinnati arrived over the next three months. Boise State and Michigan State launched on the same day in May, followed by Troy in June, Butler in July, and then Kentucky and Columbia this month.

At least three rights holders have had a hand in the deals. Learfield worked on the plans at Washington and Michigan, Playfly on those at Michigan State, Troy and Butler, and JMI Sports led the Kentucky deal and announced Columbia’s.

How the model works

Collegiate Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator, a carrier that buys capacity on a larger company’s network, here T-Mobile’s, and resells the service under a brand name, in this case the school’s. Universities license their names and marks to the company under marketing agreements, and Collegiate Mobile tells schools on its website that the partnerships carry no fees and no start-up costs.

Michigan Mobile sends Michigan $3.15 a month on its $45 plan, according to its launch announcement, and Collegiate Mobile says schools receive up to 7 percent of every payment. Michigan customers can direct the money to the Athletic Fund, a Michigan Medicine and Mott Children’s Hospital fund or an alumni association fund. The contributions come from Collegiate Mobile’s operating proceeds, so customers are not making tax-deductible gifts. Each plan operates as a commercial partnership between the carrier and the school.

Michigan Mobile customers can also receive surprise seat upgrades at Michigan Stadium, along with access to pregame tailgates and behind-the-scenes tours. Kentucky Mobile customers may receive pregame hospitality and chances at premium stadium access.

A phone plan bills every month, including during the offseason, and keeps billing unless the customer switches carriers. Collegiate Mobile markets the product to schools as a “predictable, recurring funding stream.” Customers keep their phones and numbers without signing a contract. Phillips has pitched the product as an answer to the changing economics of college sports, saying in Michigan’s launch announcement that athletic departments “need to get creative to remain competitive.”

Collegiate Mobile hasn’t published subscriber counts. At Michigan’s disclosed rate of $3.15 a month, each subscriber on a top plan generates $37.80 a year for the school, so reaching $1 million takes about 26,500 of them. The UK Alumni Association says it keeps more than 350,000 alumni connected to Kentucky, so if one in 10 moved to Kentucky Mobile’s top plan at that rate, the university would collect about $1.3 million a year.

We put together a research brief on what a college football roster really costs now. It walks through the revenue-sharing cap, about $21.6 million per school this year, and the booster money that still flows above it, then breaks down the Protect College Sports Act, the pending Senate bill whose retention fund would let a school spend roughly $48 million on its athletes.

Grant Hastings → Chief Financial Officer, Monumental Sports & Entertainment
Hastings moves up from senior vice president of new enterprises to run finance for the company that owns the Capitals, Wizards and Mystics. He succeeds Steve Miller, who arrived in September 2025 and is leaving for personal reasons after a year as chief financial officer, staying on in an advisory role through the end of 2026. Monumental promoted Zach Leonsis to president and vice chairman in the same announcement.

Eric Clouse → Chief Commercial Officer, Florida Panthers
Clouse runs sales and service, corporate partnerships, ticket operations and live entertainment across the Panthers’ four venues, including Amerant Bank Arena and the Panthers IceDen. He comes from Legends Global, where he was senior vice president of commercial at Etihad Park, the new home of New York City FC. Before that he was chief commercial officer at Haslam Sports Group, working across the Browns and the Columbus Crew, and he spent 10 years with the Cavaliers.

Tyler Rutstein → Chief Marketing Officer, PGA Tour
The Tour hired Rutstein out of Under Armour, where he was senior vice president of global brand and Americas marketing and ran brand management, creative, sports marketing and shoppable commerce. He was chief brand officer and vice president of commerce at Overtime before that, and spent close to a decade at Adidas. He starts Oct. 5 and reports to Andy Weitz, president of enterprise operations. The Tour named a new chief technology officer in the same release and says it is still recruiting a chief financial officer and four other senior executives.

John Fizer → Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, PGA Tour
Fizer joined the Tour on Sept. 14 to lead investor relations. He was chief investment officer at Mill Hill, an advisory practice he started, after stops as an executive director at JPMorgan Private Bank and a private wealth advisor at Goldman Sachs. He captained the golf team at Virginia and played on developmental tours, then earned a law degree at Rutgers.

Jon Palumbo → Executive Deputy Athletics Director and Deputy CEO of Champions Blue, University of Kentucky
Palumbo is now the number two at both UK Athletics and Champions Blue, the entity Kentucky created to build new revenue streams and partnerships. He arrives from Michigan State, where he was executive deputy athletics director and chief operating officer, led Spartan Ventures as its chief executive, including its July 1 launch, and finished as interim athletics director. He worked for J Batt at Georgia Tech starting in 2022 and took over there as interim athletics director when Batt left.

Susan Richard → Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Success and Compliance, University of Chicago
Richard takes over student-athlete success and compliance for Chicago’s Division III program on Friday. She spent the past two and a half years as assistant director for the student experience at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Earlier she worked in student-athlete academic support at Northern Illinois and academic services at the University of Miami. She holds a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Florida Atlantic and a master’s in sports management from Northern Illinois.

Julie Byron → Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator, Canisius University
Byron picks up administrative oversight of academic advising, compliance, sports medicine and student-athlete development for the Golden Griffins. She spent seven years at Marist, four of them as assistant athletic director for intramurals, club sports and camps, and three as director of university events. Her career started in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference office, where she went from director of special events to assistant commissioner for women’s basketball, and she has also managed events for ESPN Regional Television and the Basketball Hall of Fame. Canisius plays in that same league, now called the Metro Conference.

Íñigo Aznar → Chief Revenue Officer, Inter Miami CF and Nu Stadium
Aznar arrives from the Rafa Nadal Academy, where he was managing director for its international expansion, to run partnerships, ticketing, retail and marketing for the club and its new stadium. He was chief commercial officer and a board member at Atlético de Madrid and spent about six years at Real Madrid. He also led global partnerships work at Legends. The job covers Heron Sports & Entertainment, the commercial platform Inter Miami built to sell events and corporate bookings at its venues. He reports to Xavier Asensi, president of business operations, and takes over five months after Nu Stadium opened with 26,700 seats.

We rebuilt our Fan Sentiment Index to report the headline score against a baseline of 100, so the number rises and falls with how fans feel from one week to the next. The new version also adds sub-indices and trendlines built for the people who run sports organizations.

Vice President, Corporate Partnerships — Chicago Blackhawks (Chicago): Leads sponsorship strategy for the Blackhawks and manages a multimillion-dollar P&L, reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer and heading a team that spans partnership sales, account management and the strategy and operations group. Builds the long-term revenue plan for the Blackhawks and the Blackhawks Ice Center, and works with other departments on the United Center, the 1901 Project and future development opportunities. The position is fully in office at the United Center, with working relationships across Wirtz Corporation, the Bulls, CHSN and affiliate teams. Learn more and apply here.

Senior Manager, Business Development Corporate Partnerships — PGA Tour (Ponte Vedra Beach, FL): Generates new partnership revenue for the Tour, carrying assigned opportunities from prospect identification and discovery through proposal, negotiation and contract execution. The portfolio includes Official Marketing Partnerships, Title Sponsorships, naming rights and other commercial deals, with customized solutions built from the Tour’s sponsorship, media, digital, hospitality and event assets. Works with Media, Events, Studios, Sponsor Relations, Corporate Strategy and Legal to build the deals, then hands newly secured partnerships to the activation teams. Learn more and apply here.

Director, Digital Growth Marketing — Miami Dolphins (Miami Gardens, FL): Owns the Dolphins’ lifecycle marketing strategy across acquisition, onboarding, retention, upsell and win-back. Execution covers email, paid media, SMS and the mobile app, with automated journeys, renewal campaigns and onboarding series built in HubSpot. The job reports to the Senior Director of Revenue Operations and connects Ticket Sales, Membership Services, Brand Marketing, Digital Product, Analytics and Partnerships, with performance reporting presented directly to executive leadership. Learn more and apply here.

Assistant Athletic Director, Athletics Marketing — TCU (Fort Worth, TX): Manages TCU’s athletics marketing program and owns the fan journey for assigned sports, covering marketing plans, promotional initiatives and fan engagement. Growing attendance is shared work with ticket operations and sales, across season ticket, group and individual game-day campaigns. Leads game-day production end to end, including technology integration, talent coordination, videoboard, sponsorship activation and in-venue entertainment. Oversees the Director of Video Productions, graduate assistants, part-time staff and the marketing intern program, and supports sponsorship integration with Learfield. Learn more and apply here.

Assistant Athletic Director, Business Operations — Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC): Runs accounting and financial reporting for an ACC athletics department, preparing monthly statements, gift fund and compensation reporting, plus the analyses that go to the Athletics CFO. Orchestrates the annual EADA and NCAA submissions and serves as the primary athletics contact for the year-end audit with internal audit and the independent accounting firm. Board of Trustees presentation materials are prepared alongside the CFO, and the role works sport by sport to help each program manage its budget. Process improvement is explicit in the job, including using AI to automate manual accounting work. Learn more and apply here.

Nissan × Vanderbilt Athletics: Nissan signed a multi-sport partnership with Vanderbilt Athletics that establishes the automaker as a Proud Partner of the department. The agreement covers TV-visible signage for football at FirstBank Stadium, in-venue branding at Memorial Gymnasium for men’s and women’s basketball and signage for baseball at Hawkins Field. Learfield’s Vanderbilt Sports Properties developed the deal, which extends a relationship that already included data science work between Nissan and the university.

Circa Resort & Casino × Athletics: Circa owner Derek Stevens bought a 10-year founding partner sponsorship, the first such sponsorship sold at the Athletics’ planned Las Vegas ballpark on the Strip. Circa also holds the Official Resort and Sportsbook designation for the club and the ballpark, and controls 54 seats in the venue, including 22 in a “Circa Dugout Club” at field level (the stadium will reportedly have 33,000 seats at cost of about $2 billion). LVSportsBiz estimated the sponsorship at tens of millions of dollars and wrote the club could sell 10 to 12 founding sponsorships in total.

JLab × UCLA Athletics: JLab takes the Official Headphone Sponsor title for UCLA football and men’s and women’s basketball under a multi-year agreement. The San Diego audio company’s branding will appear on all coaches’ headsets in football this season, and its activations extend to the Rose Bowl and Pauley Pavilion. JMI Sports developed the agreement. Several Bruins also joined the JLab Playmakers NIL roster.

DQS Solutions & Staffing × Detroit Red Wings: DQS branding goes on Detroit’s home and away jerseys starting this week under a multi-year agreement that also makes the Metro Detroit staffing firm the club’s Official Workforce Partner. Founded in 2020 as Detroit Quality Staffing, the company has placed more than 45,000 associates and has made the Inc. 5000 list three years running. A portion of proceeds from qualifying jersey sales at the team store will go to local nonprofits.

Spectrum × Wisconsin, South Carolina and TCU Athletics: Spectrum becomes the official internet, wireless and television service provider for all three athletics departments under multi-year agreements that start with the 2026 football season. The Learfield-developed deals include venue and sideline branding, game-day activations and student-athlete collaborations across football, men’s and women’s basketball and other sports. At South Carolina, Spectrum also took naming rights to a student club scheduled to open fully for the 2027 season, plus video service inside the renovated Williams-Brice Stadium.

Scripps Sports × PWHL: The Professional Women’s Hockey League granted Scripps Sports national broadcast rights in the United States for the 2026-27 season, the league’s first season-long national television package there. ION will carry a Saturday “Game of the Week,” a Walter Cup Playoff series and the Walter Cup Finals, while the Scripps Sports Network FAST channel adds two national games a week. Scripps stations in Detroit and Las Vegas also take local broadcast rights for the league’s new teams in those markets. The league is adding four clubs this season, bringing it to 12.

1N5 × Xavier University Athletics: Xavier Athletics made the Cincinnati mental health nonprofit its uniform patch partner under a multi-year agreement announced during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. The school says Xavier is the first Big East school and the first major NCAA Division I institution to tie a uniform patch to a nonprofit agreement. The 1N5 logo goes on game uniforms for all 19 Xavier teams this fall.

White Sands Federal Credit Union × New Mexico State Athletics: The Las Cruces credit union will put its name on New Mexico State’s arena, which becomes White Sands Federal Credit Union Arena at the Pan American Center. The Board of Regents approved the agreement unanimously on Sept. 8, and KRQE and the Albuquerque Journal reported a 10-year term worth $13 million, or $1.3 million a year.

See you next Wednesday.