Every year, top-level college sports departments in premier conferences change their sports apparel sponsors. This year’s highest profile change (and the most expensive) will be Penn State after the Nittany Lions inked a deal with Adidas reportedly worth $300 million over 10 years. That deal is notable not only for its scale, but because it marks the end of a 33-year sponsorship with Nike that was the first of its kind in an industry that has grown exponentially over the last three decades.
But that growth has always been limited to the blue bloods. Colleges outside of the Power 4 conferences, and even a few inside that walled garden, have almost never seen that type of windfall. Even recognizable school brands are often left with deals that essentially amount to discounts on equipment and apparel. And for smaller colleges, the margins can be even less favorable.
Two hundred sixteen miles away from Penn State’s transformational deal in state college, New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University has found another way.
“First and foremost, we signed with Under Armour in 2019. It was our athletic department’s first all-department apparel deal,” Jason Young, deputy athletic director at FDU, said. “At that point, we were 240 athletes. Today, we are up to 400 athletes. So we have grown immensely over those seven years, and one of the things we were looking for in this process was someone who matched our value, if you will, on the growth side. We didn’t just want to stay the same and repeat the contract again. So that was really important to us. As we went through the process, it just became apparent that for us to find the value, we might need to look elsewhere.”
Currently, there are only four athletic apparel brands competing in the collegiate apparel space at the Division I level. The space is overwhelmingly dominated by the big three of Adidas, Nike and Under Armour. New Balance has recently made inroads but is still mostly limited to sponsoring colleges in the New England region. Three of those four are American companies, although the massive United States operation of Germany-based Adidas is essentially autonomous.
Not satisfied with those limited options that form a quasi-monopoly, Young and FDU ambitiously aimed for another option. They found one overseas amidst one of the most innovative design hubs on the planet in Italy with Bologna-based Macron.
The brand is most recognizable for Americans as the apparel sponsor of Wrexham AFC. The Macron Hero is a ubiquitous part of the uniform, adorned parallel to the club’s crest. Although still a niche brand, Macron (pronounced MAC-ron) is a staple for European soccer as the kit sponsor for Premier League side and 2025 FA Cup winner Crystal Palace as well as recent Copa Del Rey winner Real Sociedad. As they further move into the American market, they’ll also be expanding into new sports as a uniform manufacturer. But one notable absence from their product line is actually a benefit in the modern era of college athletics.
“They don’t make shoes,” Young said. “And that was actually one of the selling points for us—is it allows our athletes more freedom which, in the age of NIL, is so important.”
Both FDU and Macron are entering unchartered territory with the partnership. But with the new levers of college athletics, it might be the perfect partnership at the perfect time for two growing entities in the world of sports. And if it is successful, it could profound rewrite the blueprint for many more smaller colleges that are competing for relevance in a vastly changed landscape of sports.
“There’s trust on both sides. They’re taking a shot on us as much as we’re taking a shot on them because for both of us, this can’t flop,” Young said. “If you’re the first school and this is a major brand coming into America trying to break in, it’s gotta work. Otherwise, it won’t grow and expand to where they need it to be. And for us, I have 400 athletes, 75 coaches and staff who are relying on me to get uniforms and apparel and everything to them. That’s also pressure.”
With that much pressure, both Macron and FDU are hoping they’ve found a diamond in the rough.
‘Trying to be a trailblazer’
It’s only appropriate that the most unique brand partnership in college athletics began with one of the most unorthodox NCAA sports: fencing.
“USA Fencing introduced me to Macron,” Young said. “I know about Macron through my love of Wrexham AFC, so I knew about the brand going back five years. But I didn’t really know they had a U.S. office in Bridgeport, Connecticut.”
Fairleigh Dickinson is one of just 28 NCAA fencing programs in Division I and Macron has a robust presence in a range of Olympic sports in addition to being the official sponsor of USA Fencing. That versatile background made the company a great candidate to enter the college sports industry and will allow Macron to experiment with more new sports. And with Macron’s first U.S. office being based in the New York Tri-state area, Young connected with Macron US Director of Sales Alan Elgart and the ball started rolling.
“That was the kind of the origin of it,” Young said. “It was thinking outside the box. It was trying to be a trailblazer. We continue to identify unique ways to differentiate our department ever since that Purdue game.”
That singular game referenced by Young might be as big of a turning point as any moment for a college sports department. It’s been three years since FDU pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the history of college basketball when the 16-seed Knights toppled top-seed Purdue in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. It’s the type of signature accomplishment that isn’t so different from the meteoric rise of Wrexham AFC, chronicled in the popular docuseries Welcome to Wrexham with owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny.
As Young is taking the reins as athletic director this fall at FDU, he is very aware of the opportunities and challenges his school faces in the new world of college athletics. Although exact financial details of the private university’s deal were not available, Young explained some of the streamlined efficiencies of the new partnership compared to standardized deals with one of the big three apparel companies and their affiliate suppliers.
“There are several companies that control the distribution of Nike, Adidas, Under Armour to let’s call it 85 percent of the schools in the country,” Young said. “If you are in the top 10 to 15 percent, you’re probably direct with those apparel companies whereas everyone else has to go through a distributor like BSN, Game One, Destination Athlete, all these other suppliers. When you bring in other suppliers, it increases your prices.”
Not only does FDU get the benefits that come with a direct partnership with Macron as the first American college, also working with the brand on research and development for new sports that the company is now entering, but it makes more economic sense because of the better margins.
“When we analyze the numbers, our CFO uses the quote, spreadsheets don’t have emotions. And when we looked at the spreadsheet, that was one of the things we were looking at—forecasting prices down the road,” Young said. “Could we get more or better value out of a contract going this route? And the answer was yes. So we’re going to continue to analyze it. Because it’s one thing to forecast, it’s another for the numbers to actually hit.”
The next phase for the basketball program is not just leveraging iconic moments like the upset of Purdue as visibility moments for partnered brands like Macron, it’s also the synergy that comes with parlaying that partnership into a potentially unique advantage in recruiting.
“We see it in pro sports all the time. NBA doesn’t have a shoe deal. Major League Baseball doesn’t have a shoe deal. It’s all ankles up. In Europe, it’s all ankles up,” Young said. “College is the only space, and maybe high school is a little bit, where shoes factor in and we’ve removed that choice from people. But we know feet are just so different for everyone and having the ability for our athletes to choose is just a win-win across the board. And I can’t tell you the number of kids who come in my office as recruits and I’m like, hey you’re gonna be able to wear whatever you want. And they just light up.”
‘The coolest in the country’
With individual NIL sponsorships, FDU may have a distinctive singular advantage over any other university. For example, NBA star Cooper Flagg has been sponsored by New Balance since high school but wore Nike in college at Duke in accordance with the school’s deal. With FDU, there would be no such restrictions during a highly marketable time in an athlete’s career.
Furthermore, there are several prominent basketball sneaker brands with no presence in college athletics. Puma, Skechers and Reebok are all notable examples, and those companies are increasingly sponsoring athletes in high school. Undoubtedly, there’s a benefit in having the product represented on the court at a program like FDU.
“Let’s say a Skechers were to come in, they’re heavily focused on women’s basketball right now. They just signed a WNBA deal,” Young said. “Well, why can’t they do an NIL deal with four of our women’s basketball players and our four women’s basketball players are wearing Skechers on the floor. I don’t see that as a problem, I see that as an opportunity. If it comes to fruition, time will tell. But we’ll continue to play those angles and I’m not shy about it.”
Besides the upside with NIL flexibility, there’s also just the matter of preference. This is especially relevant with FDU’s strong men’s soccer program that has reached the NCAA Tournament 20 times, including in 2025. Players can be very particular about the touch and feel of a particular soccer boot, but often are limited by the options within a school’s apparel. That won’t be the case for the Knights moving forward.
Aside from the flexibility and appeal in recruiting, FDU’s partnership with Macron is also a chance to create a more personalized identity for the school and its sports teams. Lower tier deals with Adidas, Nike and Under Armour come with supplier limitations and limited template options for uniforms. With Macron, there is a collaborative design process unique to the university and its teams.
Young led a contingent of FDU representatives that met with Macron at the company’s headquarters in Bologna and saw a broad range of fabric and design options for multiple different sports. True to the Italian heritage, it is literally tailored to the needs of the Knights.
“We’re sitting there with the designers who design their lines, and we’re going through different fabrics on what a baseball and softball uniform need to get to. And they’re now working on that and will get us prototypes over the next few weeks,” Young said. “And we literally come up with a brand new baseball uniform that is a little bit more Americanized for our climate in the Northeast. We need thicker, heavier uniforms because we play in 35, 40-degree weather sometimes in February. So going through that process was really cool.”
While that’s breaking ground on an entirely new project and sport for Macron, there’s also been the ability to customize existing uniforms to better fit FDU’s needs. Macron makes basketball uniforms and sponsors the Italian national team, but FIBA rules allow less contact than in the NCAA, so FDU was able to collaborate on a more durable uniform that can withstand the rigors of the college game.
“It is very energizing. And then for us, the customization, it’s still one of the coolest things,” Young said. “We just didn’t have access to that before. You are given a template, you have to stay within the template. If you wanna go outside of it, tough luck. With this, we’re not able to customize the whole thing. Our soccer uniforms might be the coolest in the country when they drop in July. Basketball we’re really excited about because it was able to incorporate some of our patterns and different things.”
Ultimately, it’s partnership between two sporting entities eager to take on the major players and make a name for themselves.
“To come into the US, they’re now a challenger brand again,” Young said. “It plays perfectly with out underdog, chip-on-the-shoulder mentality that we have here in our department. We do go into these games and these arenas with a chip on our shoulder, that underdog mentality. These stories do align perfectly.”
‘We look for beauty. We look for quality.’
For all of Macron’s differentiating features as an apparel sponsor, their aversion to the spotlight might be the most unique dichotomy.
Despite being a rising brand for two decades that is now the third-biggest apparel sponsor in European soccer after Adidas and Nike, Macron only recently began creating their public relations team in 2023. It’s a testament to the brand’s dedication to craftsmanship and relationships over perception. Situated in Bologna in a region known as “Motor Valley” because of the presence Ducati, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati all within 50 square kilometers, Macron’s local business peers have shaped the brand’s focus on quality and innovative design.
Macron public relations manager Alessandro Ginelli has been with the company since March 2025, joining after a six-year stint at Ducati. Macron has partnerships with the iconic motorcycle manufacturer and Lamborghini, a testament to the company’s fidelity to its three-decade rise out of Bologna. But as Ginelli explained, the company under the direction of CEO Gianluca Pavanello has always prioritized substance over outside perception.
“We consider ourselves a premium brand at all levels,” Ginelli said. “We look for beauty. We look for quality.”
Macron’s origin story is surprisingly similar to that of behemoth Nike. Around the same time Nike’s name change and rebranding in 1972, the company began as a distributor of American sportswear in Italy in 1971. In 1994, the company relocated to the Crespellano area of Bologna. Macron expanded into sports apparel sponsorships in 2001 with historic Italian soccer club Bologna FC. And under the direction of Pavanello since 2004, the company has expanded globally in soccer and rugby while adding more sports to the brand’s portfolio.
“The name Macron derives from the Greek macro which means large, great,” Ginelli said. “We like to say that our promise of growth is embedded in our names. So we are always seeking new opportunities to expand to build in a sustainable way a great Italian sports company. And I think matching this attitude with the opportunity on the market in the USA, it was most feasible to take our business model and say, adapt it to the market.”
Naturally, every company wants have a narrative around growth and partnerships. Macron is primarily a business-to-business operator with the consumer side only recently rising with team sponsorships and the brand’s new high fashion line Macron O.N.E. (Own Nothing Else). But the company’s history is a testament to the brand’s authenticity.
Macron sponsored Wrexham AFC before Reynolds and McElhenney were owners and the hit television show took off. The club went on to be promoted from English football’s fifth division to the second tier EFL Championship. Wrexham subsequently had the opportunity to sign a bigger sponsorship deal, but stayed true to the partnership with Macron.
Now as Macron enters the American college sports market, they bring a fresh approach that is a welcome change to an industry that has become frustratingly impersonal for the vast majority of collegiate athletics programs.
“There is a huge sports culture (in America) and huge amount of possibilities of organizations and teams that need to dress up their athletes. And we are more than ready to provide them with the top quality Italian apparel also with a specific unique touch,” Ginelli said. “It’s one of our values, and we always want to represent the needs of all the people that we partner with.”
‘I don’t think we’ll be the last’
While the vision is clear for the partnership between Fairleigh Dickinson and Macron, the validity of the novel approach to college sports apparel will be in the results on fields and courts. But whether or not FDU sees a meteoric rise like Wrexham AFC or is just a historic first domino to fall in a new trend for athletics, it’s refreshing to see a department try to forge a new path outside of the slog of the current options.
There’s certainly no guarantee that the Knights will have another opportunity for an iconic moment like the men’s basketball team’s upset of Purdue in 2023, but they will be in a prime position to do something similar this fall when that team hits the court on the road in Champaign, Illinois. No matter what, history will be made when the Knights step onto the hardwood with Macron uniforms.
“You’re gonna feel them on a deeper level than any apparel provider before at FDU. So I think all that energy is gonna come,” Young said. “And then once hoops opens up at Illinois, it’s going to be a Final Four banner raising night for Illinois. It’s going to be Nike versus Macron. I think it’s kind of cool, and I look forward to being there for that first game for them on the stage.”
It’s only appropriate that the first big moment for the Macron partnership will be in Illinois against a Big Ten opponent. It was an apparel snafu involving the other Power 4 program in Illinois that incidentally put the Knights on their newly forged path.
“We tried doing customization jerseys with Under Armour for example, because Northwestern got these city connect style uniforms,” Young said. “We’re like, hey can we do something like that? And the answer was straight up, no.”
That type of interaction is one that is common for mid-major programs, and many of them thought there was no recourse. Even in the ultimate results-based business, success in this aspect doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Penn State was the first to bring sports apparel partnerships into the world of college athletics more than three decades ago, and now Fairleigh Dickinson will be the first college to truly break that mold.
“Being able to have the same access that those clubs have, it’s really cool. I think it goes back to the respect they have for us and vice versa for them. The story is lining up,” Young said. “To be the first—I don’t think we’ll be the last. And it’ll be great to see how they grow here in the us. And we’ll be part of that story. We’ll forever be the first.”
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: NJ college FDU, Italy’s Macron athletics apparel deal tailored for new era
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