Four sports marketing companies are vying for the opportunity to pay the University of Tennessee Athletics Department in the neighborhood of $70 million to $80 million over the next decade.

If things go well, the amount could be even greater.

If it sounds like a sweet deal, it could be.

But for UT's athletic department — which brought in $69.2 million in revenues last year and still ended up $50,000 in the red — this contract could have huge consequences.

That's because for the first time UT is effectively planning to put most of its marketing eggs — everything from the broadcast rights to its games and coaches' shows to stadium signs to the little pocket-sized UT schedules people pick up at banks and businesses — in one company's basket.

"I think it's really important," said Chris Fuller, UT's assistant athletic director for sales and marketing. "(With) This deal we've got a chance to grow this revenue stream probably by at least 100 percent ... over where we're at now and maybe significantly more than that" over the 10-year contract.

"This is one of those deals," he said, "where you have to really make sure you are doing it right because of the revenue significance and because we are committed to not doing it again for 10 years."

The firms responded to a UT request for proposals (RFP) earlier this year for the athletic department's "Multi-Media Rights and Corporate Sponsorship Rights." The new contract would run from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2017.

The four companies, all heavy hitters in the sports marketing world, include Host Communications Inc., based in Lexington, Ky.; CBS Collegiate Sports Properties, a subsidiary of CBS/Viacom; Action Sports Media Inc. in Alcoa and ISP/Learfield, a joint venture of ISP Sports in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Learfield Sports in Plano, Texas.

"The first round of proposals that have come in have been pretty competitive," Fuller said of the initial offers delivered in May.

The offers are sealed and are being considered by an evaluation committee of 11 UT administrators from both UT's athletic and academic sides.

A fifth firm made a proposal but the committee decided it was not competitive.

Three different entities — Host Communications, better known as "The Vol Network"; Action Sports Media Inc.; and the athletic department's sales and marketing arm — have different pieces of UT's marketing.

But Host's contract ends in 2007 while Action Sports has a contract, with a buyout clause, that ends in 2009.

That prompted UT to seek proposals and to try something different this time — letting one company handle most of its marketing efforts.

"I think primarily we've got an interest in consolidating our sponsorships, inventory and our rights," said Fuller, who wrote UT's RFP, "the thought being from a client's perspective it would be a lot better situation if a corporate partner, be it First Tennessee or Verizon or Coca Cola, had one point of contact that could deliver a full menu marketing program."

"Whereas right now we are three-headed in terms of how we sell our sponsorships with the Vol Network, and Action Sports Media and us," he added.

Having one company handling marketing also could increase revenues. Currently, UT is in a situation in which the three entities handling marketing could end up competing against each other for clients' business, driving the revenues down.

Giving one company an exclusive, or nearly exclusive, multimedia rights contract is something of a trend in the collegiate sports marketing.

The eye-catching part of those contracts is the guaranteed money.

The University of Kentucky, for example, struck an $80.5 million, 10-year-deal with Host Communications in 2004 for UK's multimedia rights. LSU and CBS Collegiate Sports Properties recently reached a roughly $75 million deal for 10 years.

Fuller said UT would not base its decision strictly on the guaranteed money.

"What we've said from the beginning is we're not going to measure a deal by if it's the largest deal press released, if it's an $80 million, or $85 million or a $90 million deal," he said.

Instead, he said UT would measure the deal based on, "is it sustainable? Can the company that guaranteed that amount of money actually deliver it? Can they generate enough revenue so they'll be profitable and be successful and can it be in the best interests of our clients?"

When it's pointed out that companies are contractually obligated to come up with the money Fuller replied, "They are, but what if they don't?"

UT's request for proposals is pretty flexible, including provisions for a bidder to offer guaranteed money as well as revenue sharing from which UT would receive a cut of the company's gross revenues.

The way the business works is that the winning company will pay UT a certain amount of money and that company, in turn, will generate revenue by selling advertising and sponsorships.

For example, Fuller said, a sports-marketing company might agree to pay $8 million in guaranteed money to a university each year. On top of that are its radio and print production costs of maybe $2.5 million to $3 million.

That means that the company would need to sell at least $10.5 million to $11 million worth of advertising and sponsorships to break even.

According to UT's RFP, the companies were required to submit two proposals, one in which UT buys out the remainder of Action Sports' contract and the other in which Action Sports remains at UT for the remainder of its contract.

Action Sports installed the video boards at Neyland Stadium and Thompson-Boling Arena and controls both the video advertising content of the boards as well as the fixed ads on them.

The "Scope of Services" portion of the RFP informed the bidders what they will have to do if they want the UT contract.

Among the requirements would be the development, production and transmission of radio broadcasts of UT's games.

That will include all UT football games including, "a minimum 90-minute pre-game and 90-minute post-game" show; all men's and women's basketball games, including minimum 30-minute pre-game and post-game shows; all SEC baseball games and all Tennessee post-season softball games.

The broadcast rights are only for the radio and, perhaps, pay-per-view football games.

The SEC has a national television contract with CBS and ESPN.

The multimedia package also requires 46 radio shows and 40 television shows, mostly involving UT's coaches Philip Fulmer, Pat Summitt and Bruce Pearl.

The package includes the advertising signs at Neyland Stadium and Thompson-Boling as well as at UT's soccer, baseball, softball and track venues.

Finally, there are other items ranging from video and DVD products, official Internet sites, posters and various game-day publications.

Some items are flexible and some aren't. There is a specific number of game-day programs for football (it's a minimum of 5,000 per home game) and schedule cards (a total of 195,500 for 14 different sports).

There also are restrictions. UT does not allow advertising for tobacco, casinos, liquor or political campaigns.

Under UT's current sponsorship arrangement Host Communications, Action Sports and UTAD's Sales & Marketing are expected to collectively bring in $9.6 million to UT this year.

The winning marketing firm will take over what UT refers to as "partner contracts" that brought in about $5.3 million of that $9.6 million amount in its 10-year agreement.

UT Athletics Sales & Marketing will retain some of its existing major contracts including ones with adidas, Coca-Cola, Gatorade and Chase Bank that bring in more than $4 million.

That means that if the new 10-year agreement comes in at the $70 million to $80 million range, UT would receive $7 million to $8 million in fiscal year 2007-08 from the new marketing firm and get more than $4 million from UTAD Sales & Marketing, for a total of $11 million to $12 million.

Fuller said the four bidders — Host, Action Sports, Collegiate Sports Properties and ISP/Learfield — each will meet separately with UT's evaluation board in mid-June.

"We're going to give them an opportunity to make presentations and the balance of the meeting will just be discussion and dialogue based on the financials, based on their operational plan, their staffing plan, all the nuts and bolts," Fuller said.

At that point, UT will allow each company to make one last, best and final offer, if they choose to, tentatively by June 23.

The board, which includes Fuller, men's Athletic Director Mike Hamilton, the UT System's Executive Vice President Jack Britt and the UT System's Chief Financial Officer Gary Rogers, should have a decision by sometime in July.

"We want to be very deliberate and be sure we are getting the best deal for the university, certainly," Rogers said. "This is a very deliberate process, a very involved process."

"It's like any other decision you that you try to make, you want to make sure you have the best deal you can get for the university and that you don't wake up the next day and say, 'Oh gosh!' " he added.

According to the RFP, the evaluation criteria will be based on a 100-point scale with 60 points for the overall financial offer, 20 points for qualifications and references, and 20 points for technical ability.

Fuller said UT has been pleased with the process so far.

But he cautioned UT is not just looking at dollar signs.

"When people look at this deal ... it gets really easy to think about the financials because they are big numbers and it's a big decision for us," he said, "but you know what, if the product's not right ..."

"The point of those meetings are as much about are we happy with the bid as are we confident we are entrusting our brand with someone who can really deliver the product in the right way."