Pacific-10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen wants to win what he calls "the battle of the little boy's bedroom wall.

"As current president of NCAA Football, Hansen wants to make sure that when the young boy chooses to decorate his room with football paraphernalia, he selects his favorite college team over the local NFL club.

Ironically, NCAA Football - the nine-year-old promotional and marketing organization of the college game - appears to already have won over the little boy's parents and grandparents. Most loyal college football supporters come from those demographics rather than from the younger generations.

"But what does that little boy put on his bedroom wall, an NFL picture or a college picture?" Hansen supposed. "We need it to be a college picture, and then have him play with a college football and wear a college jersey."

If that little boy chooses college football décor and equipment, he probably won't be aware that NCAA Football helped persuade him. It's unlikely that many youths know what NCAA Football is. The problem is that not enough adults do, either.

NCAA Football, best known by its "pennant" emblem on college jerseys and helmets, is a consortium of members from the Amer­ican Football Coaches Association (AFCA), the National Association of Colle­giate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA), the NCAA and Host Commu­nications.

Among the organization's charges is to build a more solid college football brand with a contemporary image that creates a passion for the college game outside the existing audience. Of primary concern is the 18- to 25-year-old student demographic and younger, whom NCAA Football officials want to attract to games for the foreseeable future. In other words, NCAA Football wants a presence on the little boy's bedroom wall.

A few years ago, some people questioned whether NCAA Football could win the battle of anyone's bedroom wall. Branding efforts in the organization's early days were hampered by conferences and institutions marketing the game on their own, and NCAA Football struggled to carve an identity among the league, NCAA and Bowl Championship Series marks squatting for brand real estate rights. And until recently, NCAA Football didn't have the fiscal equity to build its way out of that brand dilemma.

That has changed over the years as NCAA Football has had time to mature and benefit from licensing programs that are generating profits and turning the promotional tide. These days in fact, people close to the organization see a rebirth.

"A lot of credit has to be given to Tom Hansen for renewed enthusiasm," said Dennis Poppe, NCAA managing director of baseball and football. "After many years of operating, the leadership of NCAA Football understands the organization's capabilities, and those members are committing the time, effort and resources necessary to make NCAA Football an effective resource for conferences and institutions. It is becoming an asset not only for college football, but for college sports in general."

First and 10

College football used to not need much of a marketing push at all. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the NCAA controlled a television package that spread coverage evenly throughout the country. The games were always on Saturday and there wasn't cable, satellite or Internet to clutter fans' options. But all of that changed in 1984 when the U.S. Supreme Court set colleges and universities free to pursue their own broadcast agreements.

After that landmark decision, and in the middle of a rapidly changing technological landscape, college football steadily became a product of conferences and institutions more than of the NCAA.

"When the NCAA lost the television decision in 1984, it took away most of the NCAA activity in football, and so the NCAA, logically, did not make much of an effort to promote the game. The conferences promoted themselves, so there wasn't much of a national partnership," Hansen said.

That changed with the onset of college football's 125th anniversary season in 1994. Leaders thought to not recognize such a milestone would be nothing short of irresponsible, so members of the AFCA and NACDA assembled a fledgling group called College Football USA to launch a more collaborative promotional approach.

It was tough at first. As Hansen said, "We needed to have income to fund the promotional efforts, but until the promotional efforts gained recognition in the brand, it was hard to generate any income." Part of the trouble was that neither the AFCA nor NACDA had the funds to allocate solely to marketing and promotions. That's when Host Com­mu­nications entered the lineup. Much of the initial revenues came from corporations that participated in the NCAA corporate partner program, which Host administered at the time. Host's David Bertram said that gave NCAA Football some financial leverage and gave Host a potentially profitable client.

"Under this new model, the funding didn't fall directly under the AFCA charge or the NACDA charge," said Bertram, the current general manager of NCAA Football for Host. "For example, (AFCA Executive Director) Grant Teaff or (NACDA Executive Director) Mike Cleary couldn't realistically take dues from their memberships and turn around and spend them on just promoting college football. It was necessary to put together all the stakeholders so they had a say, but the arrangement was self-supporting without taking dollars from any one group."

It was a win-win. NCAA Football got the promotional dollars it needed, and Host recently re-upped its contract to manage NCAA Football through 2013.

Building momentum

NCAA Football emerged officially in 1997 when it added the CCA to its original AFCA and NACDA members and acquired permission from the NCAA to use its name and marks. Financial solvency soon followed.

In addition to the corporate partner dollars, two programs in particular - both coordinated through the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) - scored fiscal touchdowns. One is the official-ball program with Wilson Sporting Goods, which has produced a ball that now outsells the NFL model.

"Six years ago if you went into a Sports Authority or Champs looking for a football, everything you would have seen would have carried the NFL brand," said CLC President and CEO Pat Battle. "Today, there are a lot of college footballs that have that (NCAA Football) pennant logo. Even more remarkable is that 80 percent of high schools play with the Wilson NCAA ball. Wilson has helped accomplish reaching youth with the message of NCAA Football by virtue of the relationships they have with high school teams."

The other avenue into the little boy's surroundings is through the computer. The college football video game created by Electronic Arts (EA Sports) is the No. 2-selling sports video game in America (behind the Madden NFL version). Host's Bertram said the game sold 500,000 units in 2000, 750,000 units in 2001 and 1.5 million in 2002. Battle said the game is projected to sell close to 2.5 million units this year.

"When you think about those units purchased by that 15 to 25 age demographic and then realize that those kids are playing with their friends - there are a lot of people being touched by that game," Battle said.

Hansen said those programs helped the NCAA Football membership buy into its own brand. Conferences and institutions quickly realized that they could be more powerful promotionally under the NCAA Football umbrella rather than solely under their own. In addition, being under the auspices of NCAA Football didn't mean conferences and institutions had to give up their own marks - there was room for all.

A new agreement with EA Sports was signed in 2004 that provides NCAA Football with a minimum guarantee of $666,667 per year and a royalty rate of 1.5 percent. The agreement provides EA Sports with exclusive rights to the video category for six years, which began July 1, 2005.

Hansen said the video game is generating about $10 million per year for Division I conferences and institutions. AFCA Executive Director Grant Teaff said members in the early days of NCAA Football couldn't have garnered such a windfall on their own.

"That has been one of the most gratifying things," he said. "Interest and participation by each of the four groups has helped make NCAA Football what it was intended to be: an organization that markets and promotes the positive aspects of our game."

Revenue distribution

Revenues from the official-ball program enable the organization to do just that. NCAA Football in fact has spent more than $10.5 million on promotional programs since 1998. Some of those activities include:

Public service announcements featuring current student-athletes who chose to remain in school for their final season of eligibility rather than enter the professional draft are aired on every major television and cable network. This year, NCAA Football gave each conference $25,000 to produce sportsmanship statements by coaches and players to be used on the in-venue electronic scoreboards and with schools' and conferences' media outlets.

The pennant logo was created to help distinguish the college game from professional football. Divisions I, II and III football-playing institutions annually receive helmet decals and jersey patches to place on uniforms. Division I Football Bowl Subdivision members receive these materials along with sideline crew caps and vests customized to feature their respective conference mark.

The official Web site for NCAA Football (www.ncaafootball.com) provides in-depth information for all divisions. The site has been improved recently to be more of a destination for fans rather than simply an administrative site for members. The site includes free audio and video streaming and viewer interactives. Plays of the month, interviews, "magic moments" that feature former great players and coaches, the preseason television show and the weekly radio program also are featured. The Web site includes a store that sells NCAA Football merchandise co-branded with a school's logo and products bearing only the mark of the university.

The Take A Kid To The Game program has helped more than 15,000 children attend college football games each year at more than 200 schools.

As successful as the official-ball program has been, the video game has generated even more revenues - enough to benefit conferences and institutions directly. Profits are divided among leagues and schools, in addition to the Bowl Championship Series games and NCAA Football itself. The CLC's Battle said the portion distributed to schools is based on a formula similar to the one the NCAA uses for basketball revenue distribution. All Division I schools fall into one of four "tiers" based on performance and top-25 appearances in a rolling 10-year period.

Battle said profits from the products produced using the marks of a college or university go into a royalty pool, and each school determines how those funds are used. For the most part, he said, those royalty dollars go back into either academic or athletics scholarship programs. Many split it 50-50.

"The fact that the dollars generated go back to scholarships is something we take a lot of pride in," Battle said.

That pride isn't lost on the AFCA's Teaff, either. The man who came into the organization at the ground floor said it has been satisfying to see it flourish - and not at the expense of any one group.

"The single-most important benefit from NCAA Football is that it brings together four entities that find a common purpose in doing something for the game without remuneration to any one of the organizations," he said. "NCAA Football is an entity that does what the individual entities separately not only have not done but probably can't do."

While it may have taken a few years for the NCAA Football parts to realize that their sum has more leverage, that epiphany seems to be taking hold.

"Significant changes have taken place over the years through the cooperative efforts of the constituent groups that are NCAA Football," Hansen said. "NCAA football-playing schools, through the encouragement of the AFCA, NACDA and conference commissioners, are embracing branding strategies adopted by NCAA Football that maximize exposure for the official mark."

And which help win the battle of the little boy's bedroom wall.