For the second year in a row, the UCF football program will promote the players with its spring game uniforms. Only this time, rather than simply adding their Twitter handles to their nameplates, the Knights have replaced the numbers on the back of their jerseys with a custom QR code.
The QR codes – which are two-dimensional barcodes that contain information about the item to which it is attached – can be scanned with a smartphone and will link to the player’s bio on UCF’s official website.
There, fans can find links to the player’s Twitter and Instagram pages, contact information and merchandise, which is now permitted under the NCAA’s name, image and likeness rules adopted by the NCAA and several state legislatures last summer.
“We wanted to be the school that embraced it,” second-year head coach Gus Malzahn told Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger. “At the old, traditional schools, there’s a lot of dynamics. Yeah, they’re for it but really, they’re not for it. We are a school that can fully embrace it – the young school, social media. It fits with us.”
In addition to the uniforms, the coaching staff will wear polos featuring personalized QR codes during Saturday’s spring game, which kicks off at noon at the Bounce House in Orlando.
“It was a little weird early on. Now it’s not,” Malzahn said. “Now it’s part of the job description.”
Photos courtesy of @UCF_Football on Twitter.