The Notre Dame Fighting Irish announced on Tuesday that they have signed a multi-year jersey patch deal with SoFi. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports was the first to report the agreement and revealed that it’s a six-year deal averaging $18-20 million annually, making it “the most valuable jersey sponsorship deal in college athletics history.”
The news of Notre Dame‘s deal with SoFi came just a few hours after Ohio State reached its own agreement on a jersey patch deal with JPMorganChase for nearly $17 million per year.
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And on Wednesday morning’s edition of ESPN’s First Take, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo sounded off about Notre Dame agreeing to the jersey patch deal, and dissed the Buckeyes along the way.
“What Notre Dame is doing right now with this patch with SoFi and getting 18 million dollars. Let Ohio State do it,” Russo said. “Who cares about Ohio State? Ohio State, they’re a football factory. We understand Ohio State. They’re great, but it’s a football factory. That’s what Ohio State is. They do things like that. Notre Dame, there’s more of an accountability. It’s the Fighting Irish. It’s Knute Rockne. It’s 1934. It’s Lou Holtz. It’s everybody.”
“This is Notre Dame!” Russo continued, while screaming at old-timey Notre Dame highlights. “This right here! This is Notre Dame football! South Bend! National champion! This is what I’m referring to!.. And they’re gonna sit there and wear that asinine SoFi patch because of a couple of dollars? There’s the stupid patch! Enough of the patch!
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“The same Notre Dame that did nothing but scream and yell last year of how they got buried with the [College Football Playoff] committee not getting into the top-12, which they shouldn’t have gotten in. The committee did a great job! They moaned and groaned about that, and so to pay us back, they’re going to wear a patch and get paid $18 million! Give me a break! I’m embarrassed, and I have a daughter who went to Notre Dame!”
It was reported last September that the NCAA was expected to allow schools to sell jersey sponsorship patches, and the NCAA made it official for the 2026 fall sports season in January. Several major programs have landed lucrative jersey patch deals, and the Big 12 even reached an agreement on a deal with Monster Energy.
The post Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo blasts Notre Dame over jersey patch deal appeared first on Awful Announcing.
