Ole Miss is reported to be leaving Nike for Adidas on a seven-year agreement worth more than $20 million per year, beginning July 1, 2027 and ending a Nike relationship dating to 1999. On3 reported the terms, and the school has not confirmed them. Prior reporting put the Nike deal at roughly $3.5 million to $4 million per year, at least a fivefold raise.
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis called it a Godfather offer and argued the decisive term was never the money. The objection to Adidas, Willis said, was that the brand has dressed teams badly while Ole Miss owns one of the best color identities in the sport. Collaborative discussions on branding, color and uniform design ended that objection.
Willis cautioned that the $140 million figure in headlines has not been reported anywhere; it is 20 multiplied by seven. The deal does not put Ole Miss atop the sport, he argued, but into a tier Adidas has spent a year assembling: Penn State at roughly $30 million per year, Tennessee at a reported $20 million to $30 million.
The scale matters: the revenue-share cap is $20.5 million, and the average Power 4 program adds another $13.5 million in third-party money. Mississippi State, with Adidas since roughly 2009, last publicly reported about $2.5 million per year, and Willis said no program sits second in its own state in its own brand’s pecking order for long.
Ole Miss is a 9.5-point favorite at Vanderbilt on Saturday, against a team that has not beaten a conference opponent this season. Willis argued the bye week finally puts the intangibles on the Rebels’ side, with 14 days off a loss rather than a high, and that the road, not the opponent, is the risk.
Photo: Trinidad Chambliss, September 26, 2026, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images.
Adapted from the October 5, 2026 episode of Locked On Ole Miss, hosted by Steven Willis, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Watch the full episode.