Since Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark stood on the podium at the league’s football media days in July and announced a multiyear partnership between the conference and Monster Energy, the move has drawn plenty of scrutiny.
This week, another group shared its concerns over the partnership: doctors and scientists.
What does the Big 12/Monster Energy partnership include?
Monster will reportedly pay the Big 12 $20 million annually — or about $1 million every year for each of the conference’s 16 member institutions, according to Sports Business Journal’s Ben Portnoy — in exchange for rights to a co-branded Big 12/Monster patch on football, men’s and women’s basketball jerseys, as well as a co-branded Big 12 and Monster logo on the playing surfaces for those sports.
The regular seasons for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball will also be co-branded and now titled “Monster Energy Big 12 Football” and “Monster Energy Big 12 Basketball,” as the beverage brand was named the entitlement partner of the league.
“This is an important partnership for the Big 12 as we continue to grow our commercial business,” Yormark said in a statement at the partnership’s announcement. “Monster Energy is a global, culturally relevant brand that aligns with who we are and where we’re going. Together, we will bring the Big 12 to new audiences, expand our reach, and deliver innovative experiences for our fans.”
Why doctors, scientists are concerned
That expanded reach — and its potential impact with a certain demographic — is why a group of doctors and scientists have petitioned the Big 12 to halt the sponsorship, according to USA Today.
Brent Schrotenboer reported that this group has sent letters to leadership at the Big 12 and the NCAA, sharing concern that energy drinks, like Monster Energy, are a health risk to children, but said it hasn’t received a response.
“The reason for focusing on the Big 12 is primarily the scale and demographics of its audience,” John Higgins, a sports cardiologist with the Houston Rockets and Rice Athletics, who is part of the group, told USA Today.
“Big 12 games can reach roughly 10–18 million viewers per weekend, with particularly strong exposure among younger fans. That makes the conference an especially important environment to examine when considering the marketing and consumption of energy drinks among young people.”
This isn’t the first time that schools or individual players have struck their own sponsorship deals with other energy drinks, like Red Bull or Celsius.
AJ Dybantsa, who played last season at BYU and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA draft, had an endorsement deal with Red Bull during his time in college.
Two members of the group asking for the Big 12’s response to this matter are alumni of BYU, according to USA Today. The school, which joined the Big 12 in 2022, has an honor code that advises both students and faculty to abstain from drinking coffee or tea, beverages that traditionally contain caffeine.
The group recently sent a letter to the Big 12’s board of directors chairman Doug Girod, the chancellor at Kansas, and made three suggestions regarding the Big 12, Monster partnership.
According to USA Today, these suggestions included:
- Asking for a pause of the “youth-facing activation of the sponsorship, including branding on player uniforms, fields, courts, student sections, and conference-controlled media likely to reach minors.”
- A request to commission an independent health review, including pediatrics and cardiovascular medicine.
- Asking that the matter be brought to the Big 12 board before this branding “becomes embedded across football and basketball.”
Both the Big 12 and Monster Energy responded to a request for comment from the USA Today concerning this matter.
“The energy drink category is not new to collegiate athletics,” the Big 12 said in its statement. “Category leaders in the space continue to be active and aggressive in seeking opportunities to partner with and engage college sports fans.”
The statement from Monster Energy said, “Mainstream energy drinks have been marketed worldwide for more than 30 years and more than 100 billion energy drinks have been sold and safely consumed globally.
“The ingredients in Monster Energy and other mainstream energy drinks — which include caffeine, B vitamins, and other functional ingredients — are found in a broad range of familiar food products that have a long history of safe consumption. Monster Energy contains about half the caffeine found in a similarly sized coffee-house coffee.”
How the Big 12/Monster sponsorship has been received
The partnership has drawn plenty of scrutiny, among them the concern that the Big 12 could and perhaps should have received more revenue from the deal.
In the time since the announcement of the partnership, individual schools from other leagues, like the Big Ten’s Ohio State, have announced their own lucrative jersey patch deals.
Beginning with the 2026-27 academic season, the NCAA is permitting Division I teams to wear up to two commercial sponsorship patches during the regular season and preseason, plus one extra for conference championships.
The Big 12’s deal with Monster still allows the conference’s member institutions to seek their own jersey sponsorship deal.
Within a week of Big 12 media days, BYU announced its first-ever football jersey sponsorship deal with Entrata, a Utah-based tech company.
The day after the Big 12/Monster deal was announced, Utah athletic director Mark Harlan talked about the new sponsorship.
“Well, you have to think of this a little bit different than a typical jersey patch in that it is part of the Big 12’s patch. It’s really their turf and the NCAA said they could do it,” Harlan said.
“I think it’s a really innovative thing that (Yormark has) done and someone was being critical about the deal and I said on radio … I just said it’s about a million bucks more than Utah had yesterday, and that’s really important," Harlan added.
“The traditionalist in me is like, ‘Ugh,’ but the reality that the operation that we have to run is revenue is important and I think this one’s pretty harmless and pretty cool.”
What will the Big 12/Monster logo look like?
While the Big 12 has yet to officially share what the co-branded Big 12/Monster logo will appear like both on jerseys and playing surfaces, there have been numerous photos shared on social of what the logo apparently will look like — and it’s often been met with mixed reactions.
The first Big 12 football game of the season is quickly approaching, with TCU playing North Carolina in a neutral-site matchup in Ireland on Aug. 29.
The rest of the league begins play the next week — locally, Utah hosts Idaho on Sept. 3 to open its 2026 season, while BYU kicks off the year two days later on Sept. 5 in a home game against Utah Tech.