On Thursday, the Big Ten and Abbott, a biomedical company, announced the start of a nationwide blood drive competition between the 18 teams that make up the conference.
Between September 26 and December 6, students, alumni and fans will be able to link their donation towards a particular university. The school with the most donations in their name at the end of the donation period will earn one million dollars to advance student or community health however they see fit.
To link their donations, individuals will submit a photo from their donation of a screenshot of a confirmation email they received.
At the time of publication, 108 donors had associated their donation with a particular school according to the Big Ten’s online tracker and USC had one donor.
In a post on the USC Athletics Twitter account, head coach Lincoln Riley said the drive was especially important given a blood shortage in the United States.
“Give blood this season and you can help save up to three lives each time,” Riley said. “Let’s make Trojan nation the number one blood donor in the Big Ten.”
In January 2024, the American Red Cross declared an emergency blood shortage. According to the organization’s press release, donations through the Red Cross have fallen by about 40% over the last 20 years.
According to the Red Cross, almost 13.6 million units of blood components are collected annually in the U.S. and are used in treatments ranging from trauma to childbirth and chronic diseases.
Promotional material will continue to appear on USC social media in the coming weeks. Abbott and the Big Ten have partnered with NFL star Tom Brady to promote the initiative.
Individuals who donate through “The We Give Blood Drive” will receive a free one-month subscription to the B1G+, the Big Ten’s streaming service, and will be entered into a drive to win a trip to the championship game, December 10.
At a press conference launching the event, Abbott CEO Robert Ford said the collaboration with the Big Ten specifically was influenced by the size of the conference and the proximity of Abbott’s corporate headquarters in Illinois.
Ford said the program was important to raise awareness of blood donation among young people.
“As the older generations become less likely to be eligible to donate, we want to engage and inspire young people to be part of the solution by becoming regular donors,” Ford said. “The younger generation is known for its altruism and desire to give back to the community so we approached the Big Ten with a concept: what if we mobilized the Big Ten’s large and impassioned community to put its famous energy into this work.”
Ryan Kober, director of philanthropy for American Red Cross at USC and a junior studying human development and aging, said incentives like gift cards for donating blood can also be motivators in promoting donation among young people, pointing to the image of the broke college student.
“Just telling them the benefits, and that you’re actually saving lives and doing this and it’s one of the easiest ways to save lives. I think that that really can pull people in,” said Kober. “Sometimes the Red Cross will give you an incentive for giving blood — so there’s like a $20 gift card for Amazon — so once the students hear that, their eyes light up, and that always pulls them in.”
The collaboration will include bringing mobile blood drives to Big Ten campuses throughout the football season. The USC date will be finalized within the next couple of weeks, according to an Abbott spokesperson.
LifeStream Blood Bank, the primary blood supplier for Keck Medicine of USC, has scheduled a blood drive on October 2 at USC Village and participants can count their donation toward USC’s total.
American Red Cross at USC, which normally promotes the campus blood drives, has had difficulty with promoting the upcoming blood drive given the delay in processing RSO applications. However, Kober said the new program will motivate them to promote blood donation in the week leading up to October 2.
In order to be eligible to donate, individuals must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, have normal blood pressure and temperature, and may be ineligible given medication, travel or sexual history.