Beer and sports just seem to go together, but that hasn't always been the case in college athletics. Less than 10 years ago, schools like Ohio State weren't yet permitting the sale of alcohol at football games. Now, things have shifted dramatically. Not only can fans purchase alcohol at major collegiate athletic events across the country, but the schools themselves are launching their own brands.
Due to rule changes that now allow student athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL), schools have created funds or partnered with third-party NIL collectives to pay athletes and connect them with brands for endorsement deals.
One way these funds and collectives are generating revenue is through the sale of university-branded beers.
In 2023, the collective Cincy Reigns partnered with the University of Cincinnati to launch Cincy Light, a light beer brewed by Rhinegeist to raise funds for the collective. Since then, schools across the country have joined in the trend.
This year alone, university-branded beers have popped up at Miami, Xavier and Northern Kentucky University, to name a few.
Cincinnati Beverage Company has partnered with Miami University's official NIL collective, Red Brick Legacy, to create Uptown Light beer, along with Xavier University's All For One Fund to launch Muskie Lager, a rebranded revival of the local classic Burger Beer.
NKU's athletic department has teamed up with Barleycorn's Brewhouse on Norse Up, a lager created to support the university's student athletes.
A more sustainable NIL?
The trend might seem surprising, especially considering the rules established in many states that restrict which products student athletes themselves can endorse.
Tan Boston, an associate law professor at NKU, says in Ohio and Kentucky, student athletes can sign all kinds of deals, but certain products like alcohol are still off-limits due to NIL laws in both states. Plus, institutions can have their own policies, limiting the kind of products athletes can endorse.
"For example, controlled substances, sports betting, and things of that nature," Boston says. "Student athletes themselves wouldn't be able to have a direct deal with those kinds of entities."
Not all the restrictions placed on college athletes apply to the institutions. While using revenue from alcohol sales to pay athletes who are themselves barred from profiting from the sale of alcohol may seem like a loophole, Noah Henderson, director of the sport management program at Loyola University Chicago, says athletic departments are allowed to generate revenue this way as long as individual students aren't a part of the branding.
"This is not the beer of Sauce Gardner, Desmond Ridder, or any of the historic Cincinnati players. This is the beer of the university itself," he told WVXU.
Henderson links the rise of NIL beer brands to new rules around NIL that were implemented earlier this year. Institutions can now cut out the middleman and pay athletics directly using athletic department funds instead of through a third-party collective. A university putting its branding on a can of beer is an efficient way to grow its operations.
"Moving the revenue stream over to the athletic department makes more sense," Henderson says. "If you can get the actual institutional logo on those cans and have the revenue generated from that partnership come into the athletics department, now you can use that money for your own payroll."
Additionally, Henderson believes NIL beers can provide a steady, long-term source of revenue derived from regular fans of athletic programs that may lack deep-pocket donors, while providing a product that increases fan engagement.
"It is what I like to call sustainable NIL, where it's not these empty, endless donations, but you're contributing to an economy that [fans] are actually getting a valuable service out of as well," Henerson says.
How much revenue collectives and athletic departments actually receive from NIL beer sales remains mostly unclear. Barelycorn's Brewhouse's Norse Up beer boasts that 10% of proceeds go to NKU student athletes right on the can. Cincinnati Beverage Company declined to disclose the percentage or dollar amount that goes to Miami and Xavier athletes. Cincy Light brewer Rhinegeist also denied a request to disclose how much the beer brand raises annually for Cincy Reigns, but told WVXU the product's sales provide a "meaningful contribution" to the collective.
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