Can Fresno State athletics score big with next multimedia deal? There’s a catch
Fresno State is in the market for a new athletics multimedia rights contract, but its revenue potential could be limited by the controversial football stadium naming rights deal it struck in 2022 with Valley Children’s Healthcare.
University officials in that deal granted Valley Children’s exclusivity in advertising lucrative healthcare services not just at the football stadium that now bears its name, but also with the athletics department, its sports teams and other sports venues on campus, as well as any campus-wide sponsorship or initiative. It holds those rights through the end of the 10-year, $10 million deal, which expires at the end of June 2032.
The challenge for Fresno State athletics now is maximizing its separate multimedia rights deal with long-time partner Bulldog Sports Properties/Learfield, or another suitor, without the healthcare services advertising category to sell. The current deal expires at the end of June, 2026.
Adam Cook, an adjunct lecturer of sport administration in the Northwestern University school of professional studies, said the loss of healthcare advertising in a multimedia rights deal is not a “nail in the coffin” for maximizing revenue, but the inability to include what is a premium sponsorship category does have an impact.
“With these media rights deals, healthcare is usually one of the biggest categories and it makes sense, right? One of the things that universities say: The athletics department is the front porch of the university. With the amount of visibility you get in being able to sell healthcare sponsorship, it’s the most visible and eyes usually generate dollars,” Cook said. “When you take that off the table, you’re definitely taking out a premium sponsor category.”
An innovative multimedia rights deal, which would include sponsorship sales and in-venue signage or scoreboard advertisements, could help Fresno State cut into a significant revenue gap with other schools that will be joining the Pac-12 next year.
University officials didn’t create much new revenue when it negotiated naming rights with Valley Children’s, turning multimedia rights into another area where the athletics department trails many of its peers.
To complete that deal with Valley Children’s, university officials first had to amend its contract with existing athletics multimedia rights partner BSP/Learfield.
Fresno State eliminated healthcare services from the categories that BSP/Learfield could sell, so it could give it to Valley Children’s, and in the process it agreed to take substantially less from BSP/Learfield in annual guaranteed rights fee payments.
Fresno State gave back more than $3.6 million in annual guaranteed rights fees over the past five years.
As an example, the athletics department was to receive $3,845,000 in the final year of the contract with BSP/Learfield. In the amended contract, with healthcare services cut out of advertising inventory BSP/Learfield could sell, the payment was cut to $2,879,500.
So, it had $1 million coming in through the new stadium naming rights contract, but it gave back $965,500 in its multimedia rights deal to get it.
Amended again in 2024 to settle a dispute stemming from payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, the guaranteed rights fee in 2024-25 and 2025-26 was set at $2.5 million.
Fresno State, as a result, reported $4.1 million in royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorship revenue in 2024, according to its revenue and expense filing to the NCAA.
In contrast, Boise State in 2024 generated $7.4 million through royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorships and last year signed an extension with Learfield that could be worth as much as $9.1 million in guaranteed rights fees, according to reports.
San Diego State also is in that range, reporting $9.4 million in royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorship revenue. Oregon State reported $10.5 in its filing to the NCAA.
Cook, the expert from Northwestern, put the ceiling in the $9 million to $10 million range for multi-media deals at schools in the Group of Six conferences.
Fresno State officials also deleted a look-in clause in the stadium naming rights deal tied to conference realignment, which would have allowed for a renegotiation or a set increase of the naming rights fee if the Bulldogs were to join a larger conference. The clause was rejected by Valley Children’s Healthcare, and that was the end of it.
Fresno State athletics director Garrett Klassy, who became AD in June 2024, two years after the Valley Children’s naming rights deal was negotiated, said that the school simply needs to work with what it has available to offer in a multimedia rights deal.
“The reality is we can’t focus on the inventory that we don’t have. We have to focus on the inventory that we do have, and we plan on growing,” he said.
“One of the things that has been very important to me since I’ve been at Fresno State is that we need to connect with more of our businesses, and when it comes to the Valley Co-Op and student-athlete recruitment and retention, the businesses are going to be key to that side of it. We need to figure out a unique way where we can utilize our (intellectual property) as a university and all of our assets, including digital assets, where we can get businesses involved while giving them something in return (so) that they can market their business or their product.”
Cook and Jonathan Arthur Jensen, an associate director of the Center for Sport Management Research and Education at Texas A&M, still see potential upside for Fresno State in its next multimedia rights contract, whether sticking with BSP/Learfield or going with a different third-party vendor.
“I don’t think having one category not available to sell has a huge impact,” Jensen said. “A bigger impact is not having the naming rights to sell. There are more than 20 other major categories they can probably sell, above and beyond ones that already have exclusive sponsors.”
“It’s more about getting creative with how you repackage or even create value in different areas,” Cook said. “You’re probably not going to reach that $9 million or $10 million ceiling without being able to have the healthcare category available. That doesn’t mean the general wellness category is off the table. There are a lot of wellness brands. There are a lot of health tech companies that are in the space that can still build a lot of value.
“You can bundle assets differently, using different digital activations as opposed to just traditional advertising in stadiums or a venue. I don’t think that this sinks the ship by any stretch of the imagination, it just makes the pie that you’re selling a little bit smaller.”
Klassy, who was at Nebraska when it briefly brought multimedia rights in-house, said Fresno State is vetting every process and every vendor possible.
“The good thing is we have the leaders in multimedia rights across the country that are interested in this property, and we’re looking at some non-traditional ways to go about this, as well,” he said.
This story was originally published September 13, 2025 at 9:36 AM with the headline "Can Fresno State athletics score big with next multimedia deal? There’s a catch."