(UW Media Relations Photo)
The University of Wyoming athletics recently took a major step towards putting itself into the forefront of corporate partnerships in the ever-evolving college athletics space.
UW announced on Monday that it would be partnering with infrastructure company Tallgrass to add jersey patches to all football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball jerseys beginning in the upcoming 2026-27 seasons. The multi-million dollar investment by Tallgrass also makes the company the highest corporate contributor in program history.
“Tallgrass has really stepped up and become a great partner of the University of Wyoming and I’m very excited,” UW athletic director Tom Burman said. “I will tip my hat to them because, as we’ve mentioned in the press release, they’re not a Wyoming based company. They do a great deal of work in Wyoming, and what I loved about it was they said ‘hey, we want to be a part of Wyoming.’”
UW and Tallgrass officially signed a five-year, $4.5 million deal for the addition of the Tallgrass jersey patches. Burman added that around a minimum of $450,000 from that deal will be allocated towards all revenue-sharing sports—which includes the three aforementioned sports that will have the jersey patches, as well as volleyball and wrestling.
“It all goes into one big pot and then we distribute it based on the revenue that comes in from those programs,” Burman said.
UW is now the second program in the Mountain West to announce a jersey patch partner, as UNLV was quick to announce their own partnership with Acesso Biologics back on Dec. 8, despite the NCAA not officially announcing approval of jersey patch sponsorships until Jan. 23. Burman noted UW was also working on securing a jersey patch partner in the background well before the approval date, as well.
“We knew beforehand it was going to be approved, so we had dialogue with some companies,” Burman said. “Tallgrass came into the forefront in early September and we were able to close the deal in fairly quick order.”
The official approval by the NCAA states that all Division I teams are allowed two commercial logos on uniforms and apparel for regular season play. Those logos are not allowed to exceed over four square inches. Burman said it is currently “not on their agenda” to add an additional jersey patch.
Still, the deal Wyoming was able to sign with Tallgrass is a considerable step towards continuing to build up the program’s revenue sharing pot.
“There’s still always going to be deals bigger than what we get at the University of Wyoming, but this is a great deal and one of the bigger deals in our league,” Burman said. “We are the second conference member to announce a jersey patch, so we’re thrilled by it. We just got to keep, as I say, in fundraising, you got to keep stacking.”
This jersey patch deal is just the first of many different avenues UW is exploring in terms of corporate partnerships, as well. Corporate logos on the field at War Memorial Stadium and the naming rights of the Arena-Auditorium are some, to name a few.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to sell some more assets, as we go forward,” Burman said. “What we’d love to get done is the field logo, I mean, we’d love to get all of them done.
“But, as you can imagine, in a state like Wyoming, there’s limited companies that can bite this kind of price point. When I say limited, it’s limited, so we got to be patient. We gotta work with those companies and see if we can get a deal with them.”
As revenue generation becomes increasingly critical in college athletics, partnerships like this will play a key role for UW moving forward and will allow the program to remain competitive as the landscape of college athletics continues to change.
