Illinois State Looked For National Access In Signing First Multimedia Deal With Learfield

While Illinois State's 10-year, $19.8M deal with Learfield, will "not mean an immediate multi-million dollar infusion of cash," AD Larry Lyons is "convinced the university's first multimedia rights deal will provide a bevy of benefits to ISU athletics," according to Randy Reinhardt of the Bloomington PANTAGRAPH. The Learfield deal makes ISU the "eighth among 10 Missouri Valley Conference institutions to enter such a pact." Lyons said of waiting until this past fall to put out an RFP, "We were a little slower to get to this point for good reason. We were doing it ourselves internally at what we thought was a pretty good level." Lyons said of choosing Learfield, "What they bring to the table is the national folks that invest in college athletics. We didn't have access to those people. We couldn't get in their front door as Illinois State by ourselves." Reinhardt noted ISU as part of the deal "receives approximately $375,000 of in-kind gifts per year" (Bloomington PANTAGRAPH, 5/1).