What is collegiate licensing?
Collegiate licensing occurs when a college/university grants permission to an entity to use the college/university trademark (name/logo).
Collegiate licensing allows authorized individuals/organizations to use the name or logo of the college/university for various purposes, one purpose being, the production and sales of consumer items bearing the trademark of the college/university. An example of a consumer items bearing the trademark of a university, is the Nike UCLA running shoe pictured below. In this example, UCLA granted Nike a collegiate license to produce this running shoe.
Nearly all college/universities and have licensing programs to lead their collegiate licensing efforts.
The licensing process involves an agreement between the institution and a collegiate licensing company, or licensing agency, that manages the licensing program on behalf of the college or university. A collegiate licensing company or licensing agency is responsible for the initial review of licensing applications for those who seek to produce, initial review of the quality of the licensed products seeking production, and collecting and distributing royalties on products produced.
For the school, the revenue produced through their licensing efforts is often used to support programs within the institution. The revenue can also be used to pay for legal expenses when a legal issue arises within the licensing program.