In a move that could net Extreme Networks some more college stadium Wi-Fi deals, Extreme announced it had entered into a strategic partnership with marketing giant IMG, as the “Official Wi-Fi Provider of IMG College.”
Though the partnership doesn’t guarantee that Extreme will sell Wi-Fi gear, being the “preferred supplier” to IMG College’s stable of 90 collegiate “institutions” — a list that includes schools, conferences and venues — gives Extreme a leg up as those entities decide on providers for wireless network deployments. While IMG College might not be the final decision-maker when it comes to network deployments, its wide-ranging representation of media rights, licensing deals and other tasks for its clients certainly won’t hurt Extreme’s chances when it comes to picking a Wi-Fi gear supplier.
For what it’s worth, Extreme signed a similar non-binding deal with the NFL in January of this year, which did not require teams to purchase Extreme equipment. However, prior to this season four new teams — the Seattle Seahawks, the Tennessee Titans, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Jacksonville Jaguars all signed deals to use Extreme gear in their Wi-Fi deployments. We haven’t spoken to Extreme or IMG yet so we don’t know if the college partnership will offer IMG clients discounts on Wi-Fi gear, like Extreme does for NFL teams. Extreme recently also won the Wi-Fi gear bid for the new McLane Stadium at Baylor University, which is an IMG client.
