USC football embraces modern era of college sports with DIRECTV partnership

There may not be any program in college football steeped in more tradition than USC. However, when it's time to adapt, the Trojans are unafraid to be on the cutting edge.

As part of a partnership between the entire USC athletic department and media giant DIRECTV, there will be on-field DIRECTV advertising on the field at L.A. Memorial Coliseum this season. It is the first step the program is making into the modern era of college sports landscape which now includes expanded allowances for corporate advertising including legalizing on-field advertisements for the first time.

“We do have so much history and tradition here at USC, and that’s never going to go away,” Head football coach Lincoln Riley said. “But we also have to understand that the world around us is changing, and we can’t just sit there and only live on everything that’s happened in the past. It’s on us to find those balances, to honor that, but also not doing anything that would hamper our ability to climb, not just as a football program, but a whole athletic department.”

In August, DIRECTV announced a multi-year partnership with all USC athletic programs. That deal will be especially important to the non-revenue-generating programs on campus.

That's because NCAA schools are now anticipating the implementation of a $2.7 billion financial settlement that will require schools to compensate athletes in all sports. Though the details of that deal are still being worked out in the court system, the fact remains that the cost of running an NCAA athletic department is only going to increase at an unprecedented rate in upcoming years and schools that don't plan accordingly could be left behind.

USC is determined to be at the forefront of these changes and embrace the new landscape of college athletics.

“You see it happening in professional sports all over the place, at some of the most storied, successful franchises and organizations,” Riley said. “They’ve been able to have all the history and tradition you want, but also be able to adapt to a new world.”

While USC football is the most high-profile sport on campus, it is the Olympic sports and those that don't generate much, if anything, in the way of television revenue that stand to be aided the most by this partnership. Without massive corporate deals such as this, universities might be forced to cut back the resources pumped into less popular sports or eliminate some of those programs altogether.

Of course, DIRECTV could us some goodwill these days. The company is entangled in a nasty battle with Disney (which owns ABC and ESPN among other entities) that has seen all Disney-owned properties pulled from the DIRECTV lineup.

That won't affect the partnership with USC but it is an interesting subplot to the deal with the newest corporation to throw its weight behind the USC brand. In the end, though, what matters most is that the leadership of the USC athletic department is continuing to position the Trojans at the forefront of the ever-changing college landscape and that is something all Trojans should be pleased to see.