The University of Tennessee last week unveiled a landmark 10-year apparel partnership with Adidas, set to begin next July and expected to include a significant NIL component for Volunteer athletes.
Yahoo Sports reported the deal is likely valued at roughly $10 million per year in cash and product, though Tennessee has refused to confirm the financial terms, citing competitive concerns. Unlike the school’s outgoing Nike agreement—or most public university athletic apparel deals—those terms may never be disclosed.
That’s because the agreement is not with the university itself, but with the newly created University of Tennessee Athletics Foundation (UTAF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that contends it is exempt from state public records laws. The Adidas contract appears to mark just the beginning of UTAF’s role as the deal-making proxy and signatory for the university’s athletic department.
“With the newly established UT Athletics Foundation, the expectation is to secure more contracts with external vendors through the foundation,” Jason Baum, Tennessee’s chief athletics communications officer, said. He did not respond to questions about the school’s rationale in structuring its agreements this way. The university’s public records custodian denied a formal public records request for the Adidas agreement by noting that it is held in the possession of the UTAF, and not the university.
Other than Adidas, the only publicly acknowledged external partner of the UTAF is financial platform Ramp, which has aggressively promoted the collaboration.
Approved by the university’s board of trustees in early 2024—shortly before the House v. NCAA settlement was agreed to—the UTAF was created to eventually take over player-compensation duties from the school’s independent NIL collectives, particularly if Tennessee and its Southeastern Conference brethren were to one day break away from the rest of Division I and form a super conference. At present, the foundation serves as the entity through which Volunteer athletes receive House revenue-sharing distributions.
In advocating for the UTAF’s creation, Tennessee officials noted that many other SEC programs—including LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss—relied on athletics-specific nonprofits that were legally separate from their universities. Since then, the University of Kentucky has moved forward with a plan to reorganize its entire athletic department into a separate, “affiliated” LLC called Champions Blue, while pledging to continue honoring public records requests on at least a voluntary basis.
The UTAF was formally incorporated in June 2024 and held its introductory board meeting in December, during which it ratified its charter and bylaws and approved its affiliation agreement with the university–an arrangement similar to that of the University of Tennessee Foundation. On June 30, the UTAF officially secured its federal tax-exempt status, according to a copy of its IRS determination letter.
Because of its recent formation, the foundation has not yet filed a tax return, but its exemption application—viewed by Sportico—included some top-line financial projections. For the fiscal year 2025, it forecast $25.2 million in revenue from gifts, grants and contributions. By comparison, Tennessee disclosed $234.1 million in total athletic department revenue in FY24, against $232.4 million in spending.
Beyond House-related payments, the foundation projected spending the following this fiscal cycle: $1 million each for team-specific consulting and software purchases; $12 million for athlete-support “program activities”—including “acceleration services,” “student-athlete historical data and market value assessments,” and revenue-share consulting work—and $250,000 for other professional fees. The UT spokesperson said those numbers are in line with current expectations.
Athletic director Danny White serves as the UTAF president, chancellor Donde Plowman chairs its board, and senior deputy AD Cameron Walker serves as executive director. Other board members listed in its June 2024 IRS application included: Sarah Harris, UT assistant AD for business strategy and NIL operations; Al Wilson, former McCormick & Company chair and current chair of the University of Tennessee Foundation board; athletics booster Lucy Hand; Allen Bolton, former interim senior vice chancellor; and Lang Wiseman, former UT basketball player and current general counsel at First Horizon Bank.