When the Kansas City Chiefs open the season Thursday night with a home game, six-time Pro Bowl quarterback and three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes will be prominently featured as usual.
And Texas Tech football fans shouldn’t have to look hard to see visual depictions of their favorite son’s alma mater. This season is Year 4 of a seven-year partnership agreement in which Texas Tech advertising is displayed throughout Arrowhead Stadium and across Chiefs television, radio, digital and social-media channels.
“It’s a bargain. Bargain, bargain, bargain,” Tech president Lawrence Schovanec said. “When you’re watching the Super Bowl and you see Double T on the screen, what’s that worth?”
For Schovanec, the savvy of Tech’s marketing partnership with the Chiefs was reinforced during an AFC divisional playoff in January 2022, a back-and-forth affair in which Kansas City beat Buffalo 42-36 in overtime. Mahomes passed for three touchdowns that day and ran for one.
“He did that one touchdown,” Schovanec said, “and all the ribbon (board) was Double Ts.”
Schovanec made the comments in August 2023. The Avalanche-Journal planned to run this story shortly thereafter, but a public records request for the contract between Tech and the Chiefs was not fulfilled until late January 2024, after the Texas state attorney general’s office ruled in favor of the A-J’s request for disclosure and after the Chiefs had played their final home game last season.
In a letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Texas Tech attorney said Tech did not seek to withhold the information, but the Chiefs might wish to protect proprietary information. An attorney for the Chiefs subsequently presented arguments to Paxton proposing portions of the contract be redacted before it was disclosed publicly.
Members of the Chiefs’ public-relations and marketing staffs did not respond to emailed questions for this story.
Details of Texas Tech marketing partnership with Kansas City Chiefs
Tech announced the marketing partnership in September 2021 without revealing financial terms.
The contract runs from the 2021 through 2027 seasons, covering Chiefs preseason, regular season and postseason games with either party able to renew for three additional years. Over the first seven seasons, Tech is due to pay partnership fees totaling a little more than $6.47 million, or an average of $924,700 per year. If the deal is renewed and lasts for 10 years, the partnership fees total only a few hundred dollars less than $10 million for an average of $999,942 per year.
The annual installments started at $795,000 in 2021. With 5% annual increases, Tech’s payments are $920,312 this year, $1,065,377 in 2027 and, if the three-year option is exercised, $1,233,306 in 2030.
Additional fees are owed for Chiefs playoff games and Super Bowl appearances. Those are 7.5% of the year’s installment per home playoff game and 3.5% for each away playoff game and Super Bowl.
“When we took it to the board (Texas Tech University System Board of Regents),” Schovanec said, “some people were concerned, how long would he play? This was all because of Patrick. There was one person in particular that had some concerns. The (the Chiefs) wanted a 10-year deal, and we agreed on seven. That’s my recollection.”
In an email exchange, Tech officials said the partnership came about as “a collaborative effort.”
“The initial approach came from Texas Tech, aiming to explore opportunities for brand collaboration,” said Matt Dewey, Tech vice president of marketing and communications. “The Chiefs showed enthusiasm for the proposal, leading to the development of the agreement.”
Contained in the 20-page contract are 4 1/2 pages of 24 itemized “partnership benefits,” each providing Texas Tech a wide range of advertising and other perks every year of the agreement. Among them:
■ A digital advertising banner on the Chiefs website and on the Chiefs official mobile app that promises to deliver “no fewer than 250,000 impressions” per season.
■ A 30-second commercial and a one-minute score bar advertisement on Chiefs-produced preseason game telecasts.
■ A 30-second postgame commercial on Chiefs regular season radio broadcasts.
■ Advertising in rotation with other Chiefs sponsors on outward-facing videoboards at all major entrances to Arrowhead Stadium. Those are for each home game, including postseason.
■ During each home game and home postseason game, the Chiefs display a Tech logo on one of the ArrowVision videoboards for two minutes total each quarter. The Chiefs also display a Tech emblem for a total of one minute on the Arrowhead Stadium 360-degree LED ring at every home game.
■ A 30-second Tech ad is to run in rotation with those of other Chiefs advertisers on all Arrowhead Stadium concourse televisions.
■ A Tech logo on each Chiefs’ “away game content piece” photo. That is a photo showing Chiefs players arriving for road games. The contract also calls for partner logo opportunities on Chiefs custom draft content pieces and custom bye-week contact pieces.
■ A Tech logo on each home game “kickoff post” on Chiefs social media.
■ An “ArrowVision Takeover”. During the first and third quarters of every Chiefs home game, including playoffs, the Chiefs display the partner’s logo on the ArrowVision videoboard on all kickoffs.
■ Each season, Chiefs personnel are to participate virtually in a semester-long case study with a group of students taking a class at Texas Tech. The students are to study a business matter pertaining to the NFL team.
■ Each season, the Chiefs also are supposed to provide a small number of staff to participate in a public relations event on the partner’s campus, and select members of various Chiefs business departments to take part virtually in a question-and-answer session originating at Tech and make “reasonable efforts” each year to hire a Tech student for a semester-long paid internship with the Chiefs.
■ Each season, the Chiefs also are to provide a regular season “home game experience” for up to 20 guests from Tech and a regular season “away game experience” for six guests.
Texas Tech marketing deal with Kansas City Chiefs enables targeted advertising in other NFL cities
Schovanec credited Dewey with being key to the partnership on the university’s end.
“Matt has revised and enhanced that program every year,” Schovanec said, “and they (the Chiefs) have been wonderful partners. Very classy organization. When we go there, we take donors the night before. We go down on the field. We go into the locker room. They feed us. They have some former players that come. And then they treat you like royalty.”
Asked whether a partnership between an NFL team and a university outside its region is unique, Dewey said, “There are various examples of university-NFL team partnerships across different regions, but the specifics vary. Each partnership tends to have distinctive elements, so while there may be similar agreements, the details and scope can differ significantly.”
Tech’s advertising connected to the partnership isn’t confined to Kansas City. Tech also targets markets where the Chiefs play road games, using digital advertising, social media and local media — in Buffalo, for example, when the Chiefs play at the Bills.
Two weeks ago, Mahomes returned to Lubbock and Tech announced he had pledged $5 million toward the ongoing $242 million football facilities projects.
Schovanec said Mahomes’ celebrity also fuels the marketing partnership.
“What a tremendous asset for Tech,” Schovanec said. “How many schools graduated a Patrick Mahomes?”
