College football is hungry for cash, Cannabis might be the answer
SF pot brand Cookies inked the first NCAA sponsorship in college history.
Gilbert “Berner” Milam Jr. never thought the University of Southern California would say yes. When the founder and CEO of the cannabis brand Cookies first heard his business team was trying to sign a sponsorship deal with USC football, he immediately thought “that would never happen,” he recently said in an interview with SFGATE.
Marketing deals for marijuana companies are a veritable minefield — heavy hitters like Google and Facebook block them outright, and Instagram has gone so far as to shut down Berner’s personal account — which has nearly 2 million followers — for almost a month this summer for allegedly violating the network’s ban on promoting cannabis. The historically restrictive NCAA has long followed suit — official advertising guidelines still explicitly list “marijuana” as not allowed in college sports partnerships.
And yet, this month, Cookies and USC announced a three-year sponsorship deal that will put the Cookies name both on official USC merchandise and across the Trojans iconic Coliseum during games, according to Cookies President Parker Berling. It’s the first time a college team has partnered with a cannabis company in the NCAA’s history. And while everyone involved is quick to point out the deal is technically with Cookies’ CBD and wellness brand, promotions will feature the exact same Cookies logo that has become a global name in the marijuana business. There won’t be any distinction for fans in the stands.
How the Cookies deal works under the NCAA’s promotional rules isn’t exactly clear — neither the NCAA nor USC would say if marijuana companies are now free to advertise at collegiate sports — but there will “absolutely” be more cannabis companies advertising with college sports, according to Jim Andrews, an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and sports marketing expert.
“They are really under pressure to find new sources of revenue, and this is one that is potentially going to be very large,” Andrews told SFGATE.
With college sports hungry for more marketing money (especially in the name, image, likeness era), Cookies likely just unleashed a flood of cannabis cash into the NCAA.
‘The best of both worlds’
Cookies is already one of the most recognizable names in marijuana, with 70 cannabis stores spread around the world and some of the most well-known strains of pot, but the USC deal will put the brand’s name in front of an entire new audience. Milam told SFGATE it felt “unreal” to see a brand name he thought of in his San Francisco garage become the first cannabis brand in a major college sports stadium.
The Cookies logo will be broadcast to millions of people across the country who watch football games in the Big Ten (which USC recently joined), with placement on digital banner ads between the Coliseum’s stands, according to Berling, Cookies’ president. Berling said Cookies will also host tailgating events during USC’s home games and the Cookies logo will be placed on some USC merchandise, according to a news release.
Broadcasting a pot brand’s name across a college campus, where roughly half of all students cannot legally use the drug, is likely to upset some observers. Drew DeHart, a vice president at Playfly Sports, which is USC’s corporate partner in media deals, told the Orange County Register that “there’s probably going to be a lot of folks that disagree with the decision” to partner with a cannabis company and that the university itself was initially uneasy about the deal.
It’s not immediately clear what convinced the university to say “yes.” USC Athletics Senior Associate Athletic Director Cody Worsham said in an email that “department policy is to not comment on corporate partnerships, as USC Athletics is not party to those specific contracts” and directed SFGATE to Playfly Sports, USC’s corporate partner. Playfly did not return a request for comment.
The partnership itself is, again, technically with Cookies’ line of products with CBD, a federally legal and nonintoxicating pot compound, and DeHart told the OC Register that the deal would not promote any of Cookies’ THC products. It’s unclear how legally tied the Cookies wellness brand is to Cookies’ marijuana operations. Berling said the two are “separate entities” but declined to say if they are legally separate corporations or if they are part of the same parent organization.
Regardless, the general public is unlikely to notice any difference between Cookies the CBD brand and Cookies the marijuana company. Both use the exact same name spelled out with graffiti-inspired font, and Andrews, the marketing expert, said the shared Cookies logo meant it was the “best of both worlds” for both the university and the cannabis company. “The first thing people think of with Cookies is marijuana dispensaries and THC products,” Andrews said.
T. Bettina Cornwell, a marketing professor at the University of Oregon, said evidence of how cannabis marketing affects children is still unknown because of a lack of studies, but she speculated that alcohol marketing has clearly been effective at influencing youth audiences and that cannabis likely will do the same.
Berling downplayed the risks of advertising cannabis in college sports, pointing out that the teams already take alcohol sponsorships. Medical cannabis is also being studied as a possible pain reliever and even treatment for head injuries that football players experience, with the NFL directly funding some studies.
“I don’t know why alcohol companies can sponsor major universities, but cannabis companies cannot,” Berling said. “That makes no sense.”
More pot ads in the NCAA
A number of questions still swirl around the deal and what it means for the NCAA’s prohibition of marijuana advertising, although Andrews thinks the association may have quietly changed its policy in that regard.
The NCAA did not clarify its stance when asked by SFGATE. Gail Dent, a spokesperson for the NCAA, shared the association’s advertising guidelines, which she said explain which companies the NCAA would not affiliate with during championships and how “in addition to protecting our brand, our mindset also centers on protecting student-athletes.”
Those advertising guidelines clearly state that the league doesn’t allow any partnerships with companies involved with NCAA-banned substances, including “marijuana.” However, that guidance was last updated in September 2023, before the NCAA removed cannabis from a list of banned substances for football players over the summer. The association no longer includes cannabis on a list of banned substances.
When SFGATE asked Dent if the NCAA now allows marijuana sponsorships given cannabis is no longer considered a banned substance or if the Cookies deal violated any promotional guidelines, Dent did not directly respond, instead writing in an email, “NCAA member schools do not provide their sponsorship proposals/deals to the national office.” Dent had previously said, “The NCAA has the authority to review any corporate entity that requests to join our program.”
The Cookies deal comes during a turbulent time for NCAA sports. The association has faced legal challenges over compensation for student-athletes, and college teams could soon be forced to share their profits with students. That means programs are now hunting for extra cash, especially after the loss of ad revenue from gambling companies, which collectively decided to not advertise with college sports. DeHart, with USC’s corporate sponsor, told the OC Register that the loss of gambling ads made the team hungrier for sponsorships.
Now, it looks like pot companies could fill that void.
