Longhorns looking at mega apparel deal

Money is to the Texas Athletic Department like leaves are to a healthy tree. Everywhere. And don’t expect that to change.

And right now the University of Texas is staring down apparel offers that will range anywhere from $182 Million over 10 years to $220 Million over 12 years.

Back in July, right after Under Armour doled out an offer of $100 Million over 10 years to the Longhorns, I was informed that the university was focused on a deal with Nike that would materialize in October and “surpass the Michigan deal.”

For those that don’t know Nike’s deal with Michigan for $169 Million through 2027 gave Michigan the largest apparel contract in all of college football. Wolverine fans were pretty happy with the deal.

Back in July I started poking around to confirm what my source had told me about the deal that was bigger than Michigan’s, and was told the announcement would come sometime in September or October. I asked around to see if I could corroborate the information and ultimately reached out to the staff under Craig Westemeier (UT’s trademark and licensing associate director and assistant athletics director for UT) who I was told was in charge of this deal. Now for those who don’t know Craig’s name, let me be the first to let you know – Texas is in good hands. Craig Westemeier is as good as they get and knows how to play hardball. I was told Craig “never fails to exceed expectations.”

I met a few people (they have requested anonymity) who were nice enough to open up and tell me what what was going on. They let me know that (as we know now) Nike had exclusive rights to negotiate with UT until 10/1/2015, but they would most likely let the deadline pass (which they did).

When I went back to talk with the same people about what happened I was told right now it’s a big game of cat and mouse. Nike is trying to low-ball Texas and Texas is giving super-high demands to try to force the conversation in their direction.

“UT absolutely knows what it wants and all 3 companies want to get this deal for the least amount of money. It’s a game right now.”

I was informed that at the moment Nike is holding back money because they have a two week window to match any bids by either Under Armour or Adidas. Nike put an offer on the table for Texas that was too low for the Longhorns, so school officials decided to ignore the bid and listen to Under Armour and Adidas.

Back in August Adidas looked like they would be the push trying to recover the losses of Notre Dame and Michigan to Under Armour and Nike respectively, but I’m being told right now the biggest contender with Nike is Under Armour. While the folks don’t know how Under Armour got their name flowing around the office, one said “I’m sure they are hinting through unofficial channels that they’d like to talk.” We won’t know how serious this is until later, due to the fact Under Armour isn’t able to officially talk with the University of Texas until October 2nd. If they did prior to that they could be looking at tortious interference with contractual relations.

Nike is still the favorite to solidify a mega-deal with the Longhorns. Nike gets first refusal, meaning they will see the outside offers and can match it, fight it, raise it or walk away.

“At the moment Texas has to hope they can play it all well to get a blockbuster offer in the next few weeks,” I was told.

Unfortunately the Longhorns are without Deloss Dodds this go around. This was his specialty.

Currently I have reached out to the Department of Trademark Licensing and the Department of Media Relations at Texas and am still waiting for official responses.