UT Austin Signs $96M Deal with CLC

Texas athletics has decided to go back to previous partner Collegiate Licensing Co. for a 12-year, $96 million licensing deal.

CLC helped the Longhorns become the best-selling college sports brand in the late ‘90s and 2000s. In 2015, UT Austin decided to break from CLC to pursue new licensing opportunities with 289c Apparel.

At the time, former athletic director Steve Patterson said the decision to turn away from CLC would “represent a tremendous cost-savings.”

Regardless of the licensing switch, UT Austin Athletics continued generating money from royalties, licensing and sponsorships – about $32 million – during the 2017-18 athletic year. Overall, UT Athletics garnered $47.2 million. The change is part of a strategy for UT Athletics to have more control over its brand.

“Particularly with data management and retail consumer insights CLC has developed, that will help us more effectively manage the Texas brand strategically by product, category and retailer,” Drew Martin, director, external operations, UT Austin told Hook’Em.com. “We won’t throw the doors wide open like an all-comers meet, but we will take a holistic look at where we are, listen to what retailers are hearing from our fans and look at the data to determine national trends in licensed product in order to give our fans the best products available.”

Commercial products, ranging from clothing to coffee cups to computer mouse pads, will be released through the deal, which will run through June 2032.