Report: Texas A&M agrees to 15-year, $515 million multi-media deal with Playfly Sports

Texas A&M is set to announce what has been described as “a game-changing” 15-year, $515 million fully guaranteed multi-media contract agreement with Playfly Sports, according to TexAgs.com’s Billy Liucci. The deal would see the Aggies’ multi-media rights payout jump from $18 million to $34 million annually, per Liucci.

BREAKING: Per sources, Texas A&M set to announce a game-changing agreement in the multi-media rights space, inking a 15-year, $515-million, fully-guaranteed deal with Playfly Sports.

A&M jumps from $18mm to $34mm annually, thanks to the largest such deal in college athletics.

— Billy Liucci (@billyliucci) February 28, 2025

Playfly Sports is a sports media, marketing and technology business centered around the team, league, brand and network, according to its website, and is focused on a consultative, data-driven approach to reach, engage, monetize and measure fandom that gives its partners — in this case Texas A&M — a competitive advantage.

The $515-million agreement is currently the richest media rights deal in the history of college sports, according to Liucci. It will begin in 2026.

Texas A&M’s first-year payout will be a $12 million net positive increase over what the Aggies would receive in the final year of its current media rights agreement with Learfield Sports, one of the most utilized media rights organization in college sports. Per the agreement, A&M will also receive $95 million over the first three years of the deal with Playfly Sports.

In addition to that massive payout, an unspecified portion of the sponsorship deal will be earmarked for Texas A&M’s NIL (name, image and likeness) opportunities for Aggie student-athletes, according to TexAgs.com.

Playfly already holds multimedia rights agreements with 25 college athletic departments as well as the ACC, Big East and what was formerly the Pac-12 conference. Within the SEC, Playfly is already affiliated with both Auburn and LSU.

Texas A&M is in the final year of a 10-year agreement with Learfield Sports originally signed in 2015, though the company has been responsible for the program’s marketed corporate sponsorships since 2006.

Greg McElroy grades Mike Elko for first season at Texas A&M

Mike Elko earned a passing grade from Greg McElroy for what he did in his first season in College Station.

McElroy graded multiple teams and coaches, including Elko, during a late-January episode of ‘Always College Football’ and Elko earned a B from him for Texas A&M‘s 8-5 overall record in 2024. 

“Their year-one grade at Texas A&M? I’m going to give it a rock-solid B,” McElroy said. “You’re probably thinking that’s too generous. No, I think it’s about right because there were a lot of things to like. There was no drop off … there was not major drop off and there was some really positive moments throughout the year.”

That’s about where McElroy expected Elko to be, if not a little better graded, based on what many thought upon his hire by the Aggies.

“I think a lot of people, self included, looked at his hire and thought that’s safe, right. That’s safe. That’s stable. He’s going to be able to provide a structure to a program that felt like it was sometimes in disarray under Jimbo Fisher. Fair or unfair, it just felt like, felt like Mike Elko is just a rock solid hire. Maybe not super splashy, maybe you’re not going to dominate the press conference but, man, you are going to be on a rock solid foundation for the foreseeable future,” McElroy added. “He’s detail-oriented, he’s smart. He’s been there before, he has familiarity with the program, he’s got support within the program. I think there was a lot of things that would work in his favor and it did early on in the season.”

On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this report.