It has been five years since the Clemson and JMI Sports relationship “began to unravel,” but “tens of millions of dollars remain in limbo,” according to Jon Blau of the Charleston POST & COURIER. Lawyers for JMI Sports have said that they “could sue Clemson for breach of contract” and more than $24M in damages. Blau noted the lawyers “await a S.C. Supreme Court ruling on whether that’s true.” JMI Sports won a bidding war for Clemson’s multimedia rights in 2017 and “promised to maintain Clemson’s partnerships with Coca-Cola, Aramark, and Adobe,” while also building the school’s “brand in Charlotte and Atlanta by targeting NASCAR and RaceTrac headquarters.” But when JMI Sports actually started working with Clemson, the firm “felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen.” The firm accused the school’s Office of Corporate Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives and the athletics fundraising arm IPTAY of “‘competing’ with JMI’s sales team to secure sponsors.” JMI Sports “didn’t believe it was profiting enough” beyond the $68M it owed to Clemson. A restructured deal would have Clemson “keep its rights revenues, minus what it paid JMI Sports for expenses,” along with a $1M per year “management fee and an incentive of 10 percent of all revenues” above $12M. Clemson “declined and negotiated an early end to its deal with JMI Sports.” The school “had its own grievances” before $16M in guarantees “went unpaid in 2020 and 2021.” Clemson said in its complaint that JMI Sports “didn’t replace an outgoing general manager from September 2018 to January 2019 and didn’t hire for two key sales roles for about a year” (Charleston POST & COURIER, 1/3).
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