The Missouri football field will feature the Shelter Insurance logo in a new form of advertising

When the nationally ranked University of Missouri Tigers football team plays its season opener against Murray State on Thursday, fans will notice something unusual on the field: sponsored logos.

A new rule change by the NCAA allows sponsorships directly on a football field, and Mizzou is one of the first schools to get in on the action, displaying the Shelter Insurance logo on Farraut Field’s 25-yard line. Shelter Insurance is based in Columbia, Missouri, home of Mizzou. Equipment Share, another Columbia-based company, will sponsor the other 25-meter logo.

The NCAA’s playing rules oversight panel approved corporate advertising on playing surfaces in June, giving universities another source of revenue. Companies are allowed to place advertisements in no more than three places on a football field. The NCAA rule allows schools to sell logo sponsorships on a game-by-game or season-long basis. However, the Southeastern Conference only allows member schools to sell season-long sponsorships.

Logo sponsorships are permitted for regular season games only.

Shelter Insurance, a mutual insurance company that operates in 15 states, said the field sponsorship symbolizes its commitment to protecting policyholders.

“We find that sports marketing benefits Shelter and our agents because the events draw tremendous audiences,” Rockne Corbin, Shelter’s president and CEO, said in a statement to Mizzou Athletics. “It’s also an opportunity to support student-athletes through the partnership. We started as a company in Missouri and it is still our largest state in terms of the number of agents and the number of people we insure. We get to help support a team they love in Missouri and thank them for choosing Shelter for their insurance needs.”

While Mizzou’s on-court sponsorship with Shelter is one of the first of its kind, it certainly won’t be the last.

College athletic departments and conferences are brainstorming revenue streams, including selling naming rights.

The Big 12 Conference has held preliminary discussions about selling the league’s naming rights to Allstate Insurance, according to a report by The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy. The naming rights deal could bring the league between $30 million and $50 million annually, the report said.

In terms of league designation, the club’s early leaders include the “Big Allstate Conference” and the “Allstate 12 Conference.”

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