SWAC and PepsiCo Make HBCU Sports a Bigger Deal

During last year’s Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) media day, commissioner Charles McClelland and then-PepsiCo North America president of multicultural business development Derek Lewis had a talk about the future.

Two years before, PepsiCo had signed on as the SWAC’s main beverage sponsor. The company committed to hiring a SWAC student athlete from each conference university after they’d graduated. It dedicated 60 cents out of every dollar of its sponsorship to educational opportunities for SWAC athletes.

It brought water to Jackson, Mississippi, when the city’s largest water treatment facility failed and SWAC member Jackson State University and its surrounding community were left dry.

“When PepsiCo came in, they did some things that, quite frankly, had not been done before in the Southwestern Athletic Conference,” McClelland said. “PepsiCo has really put their priorities directly into the Southwestern Athletic Conference, and it’s not just lip service. … They are literally changing and transforming the lives of our student athletes.”

McClelland and Lewis talked about what an expanded partnership between PepsiCo and the SWAC might look like, and this year—again, at the SWAC’s media day—it was unveiled. The new deal makes PepsiCo the primary carbonated soft drink, non-carbonated soft drink, sports performance drink and ready-to-eat snack sponsor of the 12-school conference. PepsiCo is adding Pepsi Zero Sugar, Gatorade, Starry, Rockstar and Mountain Dew, as well as bringing Doritos, Tostitos and Ruffles into the SMAC mix.

“First, we had a three-year deal; it is now a six-year deal,” said Kent Montgomery, svp of industry relations and multicultural development for PepsiCo, who stepped in when Lewis retired last year. “Second, we’ve more than doubled the investment that we put forward in that deal … [which is] now, in totality for us, the largest investment that we’ve made with the SWAC to date.”

Brand benefits

McClelland said he felt the first SWAC/PepsiCo deal “originally legitimized the Southwestern Athletic Conference in this corporate space.”

“It gave us a partner that said, ‘You are as important to us as our other conferences,’” he said. “So when we were able to go to the supermarket and see a giveaway at one of the major chains and it had Southwestern Athletic Conference on it, that’s what we’re talking about. It’s not just dollars—dollars are important—but it was the legitimacy that PepsiCo brought to the Southwestern Athletic Conference.”

The new deal takes it a step further. Pepsi Zero Sugar, Gatorade, Doritos and Tostitos branding will now show up at SWAC events throughout the football season. Starry, Gatorade and Ruffles will cover basketball, with Gatorade also pitching in with Olympic sports. Rockstar and Mountain Dew will sponsor SWAC esports programs. 

PepsiCo also will have its brand on the championship trophy at both the SWAC football championship and SWAC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments—with more on-field/court branding and surrounding brand experiences during each event. SWAC football fans will get a hint of what that will look like at the Orange Blossom Classic, State Fair Classic, The Pepsi SWAC Classic Presented by GM, and Florida Classic—with PepsiCo touring its way through each and giving them the main event treatment.

“PepsiCo’s name is on everything that we’ve got,” McClelland said. “Even when the commissioner runs out and waves at the fans, I’m going to have a PepsiCo shirt on.”

For all the SWAC is offering, the returns of the new deal are similarly significant. McClelland noted that part of the funding from the PepsiCo sponsorship will go toward bringing in mental health professionals to help student athletes deal with the rigors of sports, education and daily life. 

Another portion will directly fund scholarships “so 10 to 15 years from now” the student athletes speaking at SWAC media day “will be able to turn to Pepsi and say, ‘Because of you, I now have a wife, I now have a kid, I now have a good job.’” Meanwhile, Pepsi will continue its on-site mentorship and recruitment efforts among the 100,000 students spread among 12 SWAC schools.

“Part of the programming that we do is not just in terms of the sporting, but also in terms of looking on campus for candidates to come join us,” PepsiCo’s Montgomery said. “We’ve had over 200 students from the SWAC over the last couple of years who currently work for PepsiCo today, and we couldn’t be happier.”

‘No rivalry’

The SWAC expanded its ranks in 2021 by adding Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M. Last year, it signed a deal with the Byron Allen-led Allen Media Group’s HBCU GO that put its sporting events in 60% of U.S. television households and 70% of Black households.

The latest deal with PepsiCo continues the thread of major moves by the conference, and PepsiCo’s Thompson said the SWAC now warrants the same treatment his company uses in partnerships with the National Football League and National Basketball Association—full portfolio, leading with brands, working with players.

In McClelland’s view, it not only puts the SWAC on a similar sponsorship playing field as the larger college conferences, but offers players similar visibility while playing in a conference that has produced 22 NFL Hall of Famers.

“It gives them a much broader platform,” McClelland said. “More importantly, when they see the SWAC, it looks just like when they watch the SEC: We have the same platforms, we have the same partners, we have the same level of integration.

“So it gives you that feeling that, ‘Hey, I can go to a SWAC school, I can play on national television, I can go to a bowl game and play on ABC. … I can achieve all of those goals that I want to achieve.’”

The SWAC also has its rivalry game against the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Celebration Bowl between SWAC and MEAC champions broadcast on ESPN through 2026. The MEAC, and both of those events, are sponsored by Coca-Cola, which has also backed Grambling State University for more than 90 years, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) for upwards of 50 years, and the Bayou Classic game between Grambling and Southern University for more than a decade.

By establishing strong ties with the SWAC, PepsiCo is not only affirming its own commitment to HBCUs but creating a scenario in which two major industry rivals could do some collective good. While PepsiCo’s Montgomery said that if his company’s chief competitor wanted to support more HBCUs, work with students alongside PepsiCo and “find ways in which we can raise all boats, we support that.” But he made clear that PepsiCo considers the SWAC “the best and most premier conference” and looks forward to working with it long-term.

McClelland was less charitable. On his conference’s media day, he touted its institutions from Texas to Florida, its attendance that’s led the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) for 47 of the last 48 years (“It’ll be 48 in the last 49 years,” he promised), multiple law schools, multiple dental schools and a partner that it sees as every bit its equal. He eats their Nut Harvest cashews, he drinks “nothing but Gatorade,” and he has a warning for anyone who considers the MEAC or Coca-Cola his conference’s “rivals.”

“In my opinion, there is no rivalry. … There’s only one,” McClelland said. “The best is teamed up with the best to make the best student athletes and students in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. To me, there is no comparison, there is no competition, and it’s SWAC and PepsiCo.”