Illinois State and Learfield Partnership

Editor: This is part of a press release from goredbirds.com.

NORMAL, Ill. – Illinois State Director of Athletics Larry Lyons and Learfield President and CEO Greg Brown announced today a first-of-its-kind partnership for the University, as ISU Athletics will outsource its comprehensive multimedia rights for the next 10 years.

The ISU-Learfield relationship begins immediately, while the agreement is concurrent with the start of the 2017-18 athletic season. The collegiate marketer already is working closely with Lyons and his athletics administration to establish “Redbird Sports Properties” – Learfield’s local team that will be solely dedicated to representing Illinois State. In addition to managing all aspects of the Redbirds’ rights including signage, digital, television and radio play-by-play and coaches’ shows, Redbird Sports Properties will develop a corporate partner platform that also may be leveraged with support from Learfield National Sales.

“This new partnership with Learfield is a tremendous step forward for our department,” Lyons said. “Not only is the company the leader in representing collegiate programs in the sponsorship marketplace, the $19.8 million in guaranteed revenue over the 10-year period of this agreement will help support our academic and athletic programs for our student-athletes. This contract speaks volumes to the regional and national value and strength of the Illinois State brand.”

Learfield has been a leader in the collegiate athletics landscape nationwide for more than four decades, and with the addition of Illinois State, it now represents seven members of the Missouri Valley Conference or Missouri Valley Football Conference. In addition to serving as rights partner to the MVC on a league-wide level, Learfield holds individual rights agreements with Bradley, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, South Dakota State and Southern Illinois. Within the state of Illinois, Learfield has rights partnerships with Illinois, Northern Illinois, Northwestern and the Big Ten Conference.

In addition to Illinois State, Learfield manages the multimedia and sponsorship rights for more than 120 collegiate institutions, conferences and arenas across the country, and supports athletic departments at all competitive levels as title sponsor of the prestigious Learfield Directors’ Cup.