USC Athletics Launches New Trojan Athletic Fund to Better Engage Supporters and Maximize Investment in Student-Athletes
July 17, 2025 | USC Athletics, Trojan Athletic Fund
LOS ANGELES — As USC Athletics works to win the new era of college athletics, the department today officially launched the new Trojan Athletic Fund (TAF), a reimagined and modernized approach to increasing fan engagement, growing the Trojan Family, and supporting a best-in-class experience for USC student-athletes.
Designed for simplicity, transparency, and fan-first engagement, the new Trojan Athletic Fund enables greater support of student-athletes, improves stewardship and recognition of loyal Trojan fans and alumni, and best positions USC to win the era.
"Adapting our business to secure critical resources for our student-athletes, prioritizing partnerships, and building alignment are central to our MAP to win the era, and we are excited to announce the new Trojan Athletic Fund, which has been redesigned to better support our student-athletes and better engage our fans," said Charles Griffin Cale Director of Athletics Jennifer Cohen. "The Trojan Athletic Fund reflects our unwavering commitment to building championship-level programs, creating competitively advantageous environments across our athletics venues, and ensuring USC remains the PLACE TO BE for student-athletes to reach their full potential in all they do."
Unchanged for nearly two decades, the new TAF has been modernized following a comprehensive third-party assessment and a thorough analysis of survey data provided by Trojan fans. This work identified major roadblocks in the old TAF model to recognizing and rewarding supporters, aligning price structures to market value, and enabling access for new fans.
As a result, the new TAF will prioritize:
- Increased Recognition and Stewardship: Donors will be stewarded for their holistic support of USC Athletics with enhanced donor communications, events, access, and more.
- Greater Access, Fair Costs: The average per-seat ticket price decreases by 47% for Football and 61% for Men's Basketball. All seats are now fairly priced to align with market value.
- Improved Game Day Atmospheres: Individual seating funds increase access to USC's home venues to passionate fans, allowing for competitively-advantageous home environments across all venues.
- Victory Points: A new point-based rewards system offers year-over-year accumulation and prioritizes donors for postseason tickets, parking, and exclusive events. Points are earned through both current and historical giving, honoring all support of USC Athletics.
To recognize its most generous supporters, the new TAF will honor donors with lifetime giving of $1 million or more to USC Athletics as part of the Trojan Leadership Circle. This recognition honors and celebrates supporters whose lifetime philanthropic contributions across all areas of TAF have profoundly impacted the lives of generations of Trojan student-athletes. Trojan Leadership Circle members will receive the highest level of stewardship within USC Athletics.
Additionally, the TAF will honor those whose annual contributions to the Trojan Victory Fund exceed $50,000 as Trojan Champions. Champions will receive additional student-athlete and coach engagement opportunities, as well as increased access to practices and on gamedays.
The TAF will also recognize former USC student-athletes through a revamped Heritage Association designed to increase engagement with all generations of Trojan student-athletes. Additionally, former student-athletes will receive a one-time bonus of 500 Victory Points.
Donors can earn Victory Points for all contributions to TAF, which will focus its philanthropic work in four key areas:
- Trojan Victory Fund: The Trojan Victory Fund (TVF) will serve as USC Athletics' competitive excellence fund, supporting institutional NIL agreements with student-athletes (commonly known as 'rev-share') as well as offering additional scholarship support and providing championship-level resources to all 23 programs. Contributions to TVF are 100% tax deductible.
- Scholarship Support: USC is increasing its investment in all 23 programs, and with scholarship limits removed following the House settlement, TAF will work to endow life-changing scholarship opportunities to enable student-athletes to reach their full potential in all they do.
- Capital Projects: Maximizing investment in student-athletes includes USC's world-class facilities. USC has raised $174 million of its $225 million goal for Athletics West capital projects, highlighted by the Bloom Football Performance Center and a new baseball stadium at Dedeaux Field.
- Per-Seat Contribution Model: Every season ticket in football and men's and women's basketball will carry a clearly defined per-seat contribution, replacing the outdated membership tier system, bringing USC up to par with its peers in the Big Ten, and empowering better home atmospheres in the Coliseum and the Galen Center.
The rollout of the new model will begin with Basketball renewals in July 2025, followed by Football renewals for the 2026 season in November 2025. All donors will receive annual giving credit for their per-seat contributions and any Trojan Victory Fund gifts.
To learn more about the new Trojan Athletic Fund, visit usctrojans.com/New-TAF or contact the TAF office at (213) 740-4155 or TAF@usc.edu.
