Notre Dame's Sam Hartman partners with Homefield ahead of Ohio State matchup

Sam Hartman has Notre Dame looking like a possible College Football Playoff contender more than halfway through September.

The sixth-year quarterback was the biggest name on the transfer portal market this offseason. After rewriting the Wake Forest record books and bringing the program to the ACC title game, he wanted a fresh start. The chance to prove himself under the national spotlight.

Three weeks into the experiment in South Bend, everything has gone according to plan. Hartman’s the fix Marcus Freeman needed at quarterback. Hartman is in the Heisman Trophy race; he might be a favorite if the ninth-ranked Fighting Irish knock off No. 6 Ohio State on Saturday night.

Making the jump to Notre Dame has also paid off in another way: business opportunities. Now associated with the brand, he’s one of the most marketable athletes in college sports.

His latest endorsement deal shows that off. The quarterback has signed an NIL agreement with Homefield Apparel, making him the first athlete outside of Indiana University to work with the popular collegiate merchandise company.

Ahead of Saturday’s top-10 matchup in South Bend, Homefield has released a Sam Hartman T-shirt which features the quarterback with his signature and the slogan “Victory March,” an ode to Notre Dame’s fight song.

“When it comes to NIL products, that’s not our bread and butter, but we like to do it for big moments or really for partnerships that makes sense,” Homefield founder Connor Hitchcock told On3. “So this is actually the first one – every other NIL shirt we’ve done has been with an Indiana athlete, which I mean, the brand is unapologetically about that. We have a pretty good relationship with Notre Dame being in-state, being a licensee.

“When we did a couple of shirts with Mackenzie Holmes, Grace Berger, and Teri Moreen, as well, they saw that and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re starting to roll out some more NIL co-brands with the school.’ They asked if we’d be interested and we said, ‘Of course, just keep us in the loop and conversations.'”

Why Sam Hartman made sense for Homefield

Priced at $36, Hitchcock declined to go into specifics of the agreement. He did share, however, that Hartman will make royalties from the shirt.

The 6-foot-1, 210-pound quarterback brought immediate veteran experience to the Notre Dame quarterback position. He beat out Tyler Buchner for the starting job this spring; Buchner transferred to Alabama in April.

He’s yet to throw an interception either, throwing for 1,061 yards and 13 touchdown passes.

It’s no secret Hartman has built a respectable NIL brand these last two years and change. Repped by Vayner Sports, the quarterback has endorsement deals with Bojangles, Candy Digital, Dove, Mizzen+Main and Wahl Grooming. He has roughly 135,000 followers, too. The quarterback has a $1.2 million On3 NIL Valuation.

“We thought it made a lot of sense. Sam Hartman was a part of the deal,” Hitchcock said. “We obviously know there’s a big game this weekend with Notre Dame and Ohio State. With Victory March being important to this year’s team with the green jerseys being a part of the Ohio State game, and dropping the week of the Ohio State game with this year’s new quarterback, we just thought it all tied together.

“It makes sense with an athlete who – he’s been in college football forever. He’s pretty recognizable.”

Homefield using NIL strategically

The popular apparel company was founded in August 2018 by Hitchcock and his wife, Christa. Located in Indianapolis, the brand has become popular through its “Big Noon Saturday” drops in the summer with more than 150 college licenses. The company has also tapped into providing a wide-range of logos for fans to pick from, whether it be an institution’s most recent marks or ones from back in the 1980s.

All that to say, NIL has not been Homefield’s calling card. But ahead of the premier nonconference game of the season, it made sense for the brand to go all-in. With those Indiana roots, creating a custom shirt for Notre Dame fans was the easy decision.

Working with the Fighting Irish and Sam Hartman took it a step further. Past the T-shirt sales, the brand can now work with one of college football’s top quarterbacks this season. That could help Homefield attract a few more customers.

“We’re not going to pump out 1,000 NIL Ts, we want it to have athletes who are bought into the design process, and we feel like we’ll do a good job marketing the product themselves, too,” Connor Hitchcock said. “So with Sam Hartman, talking with Notre Dame, they were like, ‘he’s really invested.’ You know, he really was. He has an agency that like a lot of the bigger players in NIL now have too, that we worked with, negotiated the deal and whatnot. It certainly elevates the product. You see how we advertise, but it’s a different avenue for us that reaches different people, which we’re always trying to do.