{"id":75147,"date":"2025-07-10T12:37:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T16:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=75147"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:34:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:34:26","slug":"75147-is-jeremiah-smith-the-one-who-will-hit-school-apparel-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/07\/10\/75147-is-jeremiah-smith-the-one-who-will-hit-school-apparel-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Jeremiah Smith the One Who Will Hit School Apparel Contracts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Players are now getting paid directly by schools, via revenue sharing. Like it or not, the school you may support is spending some of its net revenue to pay its athletes, per the House v. NCAA settlement. But what if a player\u2019s individual marketing rights interfere with the revenue of their school? Could Jeremiah Smith hit Ohio State\u2019s apparel contract, a flow of significant money?<\/p>\n

Ohio State is a Nike school. The two have a 15-year contract that began in 2018. Its total value to Ohio State is $252 million. That is about $112 million of Nike product, with the rest in cash considerations. That comes to about $16.8 million per year in cash and merchandise that outfits all of Ohio State\u2019s athletic teams and coaching staffs.<\/p>\n

Is Jeremiah Smith the One Who Will Hit School Apparel Contracts?<\/h2>\n
\"Adam
Photo courtesy:\u00a0 Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jeremiah Smith<\/a> is arguably the best wide receiver in college football as a rising sophomore for the Buckeyes. He finished his freshman season with 76 catches for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns. Smith was fourth in the country in total receiving yards in 2024 and third in receiving touchdowns. He is now also a paid endorser for\u2026Adidas.<\/p>\n

Smith has signed a Name, Image & Likeness deal with the apparel company that is a direct rival of his school\u2019s sponsor company. Because it is a private contract between Adidas and an individual, private athlete, the terms were not released. Smith will be a true sophomore in the 2025 season, which means he has another year of playing college football before leaving for the NFL. It would be reasonable to assume he will be getting paid to wear Adidas gear for those two years in Columbus.<\/p>\n

But how does that blend with Ohio State\u2019s Nike contract? Or is it in conflict with the OSU deal? And if so, where does this go next in an era where most college sports issues quickly move to litigation?<\/p>\n

Certainly, part of the agreement with Adidas will require that Smith where items from the apparel company. It could be his headbands under his helmet, his wristbands, or t-shirts. Could it even be his shoes? Maybe he will be appearing in Adidas commercials or promotions.<\/p>\n

Ohio State Contract<\/h3>\n

But Nike is the official outfitter for all of Ohio State\u2019s athletic teams. That goes from uniforms to shoes; baseball batting gloves to knee pads for the volleyball teams; t-shirts under the jerseys to the bandanas under the helmet.<\/p>\n

The apparel deals with the universities go well beyond the cash. With an apparel company providing all of the uniforms, shoes, and everything else, it saves the school the expense of outfitting the athletes. Ohio State has approximately 1,118 athletes spread out over 37 varsity athletic teams. The cost to the university of providing everything would be prohibitive.<\/p>\n

The money that the apparel companies pay their contract schools goes to the bottom revenue line, which factors into the new $20.3 million revenue sharing for the athletes. Yes, most of the money comes from the conference TV contracts. But at any individual school, the money from post-season play, media contracts, game day revenue, and apparel deals all go to the same net revenue total. And $20.3 million of that total will be used to pay the athletes each year.<\/p>\n

How Does This Play Out?<\/h3>\n

Does Smith\u2019s new NIL deal fly in the face of the Ohio State-Nike contract? The school\u2019s contract necessitates that all players wear Nike shoes on the field and in any media promotion for the school. What if Smith takes off his helmet in a nationally televised game and there is an Adidas bandana on his head instead of the Ohio State-Nike one? \u00a0Does the contractual right of an individual override the contractual obligations of the school?<\/p>\n

The original NCAA rules on NIL in the post-O\u2019Bannon-decision timeframe tried to address this. It was laid out that if an athlete had an NIL deal contrary to a school\u2019s sponsor, that athlete could not use the school logo in their promotion of their NIL deal.<\/p>\n

The issues with that now are that the NCAA has little control over any NIL function for any college athlete. And the enforcement of such a rule would immediately get the NCAA back to federal court, where it has the worst won-loss record in all of college sports history.<\/p>\n

It was probably inevitable that this topic would find its way to court at some point. There are certainly plenty of attorneys who make themselves busy on X\/Twitter complaining about every element of the House settlement. You would think one of them would likely find the time to defend Smith\u2019s right to execute the terms of his individual contract during a game.<\/p>\n

Smith is believed to have other NIL deals with Nintendo, Lululemon, and Red Bull. None of those seems to be a deal breaker with his own school. Could his new Adidas deal be the one that moves that needle? Or will it be left to someone else on another day?<\/p>\n

Main Image: Adam Cairns\/Columbus Dispatch \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Players are now getting paid directly by schools, via revenue sharing. Like it or not, the school you may support is spending some of its net revenue to pay its athletes, per the House v. NCAA settlement. But what if a player\u2019s individual marketing rights interfere with the revenue of their school? Could Jeremiah Smith […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":75148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,17,35609],"tags":[5714,73],"class_list":["post-75147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-news","category-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-name-image-likeness","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75149,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75147\/revisions\/75149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}