How to use Brand Manager 360: a licensee walkthrough.

Brand Manager 360 (BM360) is the portal CLC, Learfield's collegiate licensing agency, uses to run licensing for the schools it represents. If you're licensed with a CLC school, nearly all of your work happens there: the company application, requests to add schools, sales channel requests, artwork approvals and monthly royalty reports.

Logging in is the easy part. What trips up new licensees is that BM360 splits the work into separate approvals. A school can approve you while you still can't sell a single unit, because your category, your sales channel and each design are approved on their own. This guide walks through the portal in the order you'll actually use it.

The short version

1. Start with one company profile in BM360 and submit the Phase 1 company application.
2. Finish Phase 2 and sign your agreement within 90 days of a school's approval, or the approval expires.
3. Add schools one at a time with a New License Request for each.
4. Request each sales channel separately with a Distribution Channel Request. A distributor needs its own request.
5. Submit every design before production, and resubmit a denied design within 10 days using the resubmit function.
6. Read every reviewer comment and record each approved design's UPI.
7. Report royalties monthly by the 20th, with UPIs and retailer codes, even in months with no sales.

What Brand Manager 360 is

When people search for "CLC Brand Manager," "CLC Brand Manager 360" or a CLC licensing login, they all mean the same system. BM360 is CLC's licensee portal. You keep one company profile in it, and every school, channel, design and royalty report hangs off that profile.

The schools still make the decisions. CLC runs the process, but each school's licensing director decides whether to license your brand, and each school can approve or deny your designs. BM360 is the place those decisions get requested and recorded.

What BM360 doesn't cover

BM360 only shows schools that CLC manages. Plenty of schools use someone else:

• Fanatics Licensing Management runs its schools through BrandComply CAMPUS.
• Affinity Licensing uses Affinity Gateway for many mid-major programs and most Greek organizations.
• BrandComply College and Exemplar serve a smaller group of independent programs.
• Self-managed schools run licensing by email with their own forms.

Before you spend time looking for a school in BM360, check who manages it. Our directory of 690+ schools lists each school's license types and how to apply.

Getting access after your CLC approval

Your BM360 account starts with the company application, known as Phase 1. That's CLC's review of who you are, what you make, where it's made and how you'll sell it. You name the schools you want, and your application moves forward when the first of those schools approves you. Our walkthrough of the CLC application, step by step covers this stage in detail.

Phase 2 onboarding

Once a school approves you, CLC moves your account into Phase 2. Expect to provide:

• A certificate of insurance and a separate additional insured endorsement, sent in the same email. CLC expects occurrence-based coverage, with dollar figures (not "Included") and CLC's exact additional-insured wording.
• A hologram order from CLC's designated supplier. Every licensed unit carries one.
• Supply-chain disclosures for every factory that will make licensed product.
• An Authorized Manufacturer Agreement (AMA) signed by each factory, on CLC's form.
• Fair Labor Association affiliation where a school requires it.

One school that hasn't decided yet can block Phase 2 for your whole account. Follow up on pending schools rather than waiting.

The invoice and agreement

After Phase 2, you'll get an invoice and a license agreement or addendum to sign electronically. CLC takes check, ACH or wire, not credit cards.

The clock matters here. A school's approval expires after 90 days if the invoice and agreement aren't completed, and you'd be back to asking.

Giving your team access

Decide early who owns BM360 at your company and who else needs to work in it: the person submitting artwork, the person filing royalty reports and the person handling license requests. Keep the login details and your onboarding documents (insurance certificates, codes of conduct, factory list) somewhere your whole team can reach. You'll reuse them constantly.

Navigating the dashboard

CLC updates the portal from time to time, so rather than walk through every button, here's what the main areas of work are and what each one is for:

• License requests. Where you ask to add a school and see where each request stands.
• Your contract. Which schools, product categories and sales channels you're actually approved for. Check this before you submit anything.
• Distribution channel requests. Where you ask to sell through a new channel, one request at a time.
• Artwork and product submissions. Where every design goes for approval, and where reviewer comments come back.
• Royalty reporting. Where you file monthly reports using CLC's template.

If you only remember one thing about the dashboard: the contract view is the source of truth. A school showing as approved doesn't mean every category and channel is open to you there.

Adding schools with a New License Request

Once your company is set up, each additional school is a New License Request. There's no application fee to add a school. When a school approves you, it invoices a royalty advance, and that advance comes back at every annual renewal. Royalty rates and minimums are set by each school.

Each request has two text fields, "reason for this request" and "marketing plan," usually capped at 5,000 characters each. You also attach a plan with high-resolution product images.

What to put in each field

• Reason (3 to 4 short paragraphs): why this school, then your differentiation or founder story, then your licensing traction in numbers, then a focused channel plan that doesn't duplicate current licensees. If the school denied you before, say what changed.
• Marketing plan (numbered sections): your main channel and how you'll drive demand, designs made for this school, geo-targeted digital aimed at its city and alumni, and one line protecting campus retail, such as consistent pricing.

Write every request for that school. A reused plan that still names a different school is one of the fastest ways to a no, and a denial usually locks you out for six months or more. Our guide to why college license applications get denied covers what directors look for.

Adding channels and categories

A design can only be submitted under a product category that's already on your contract, and you can only sell in channels that are approved.

CLC uses one Distribution Channel Request per channel. If you sell through a distributor, that distributor needs its own request.

Ask only for the channels you'll actually use. Selecting every channel reads as unfocused and gets requests denied on its own. You can add channels later, once you have a track record.

Submitting designs and products

Every piece of artwork is submitted and approved in BM360 before production. Here's the sequence that avoids most bounced submissions:

1. Confirm the school, category and channel are on your contract. If any one is missing, fix that first.
2. Pull current marks from the school's style guide. Outdated logos, off-palette colors and wrong lockups are the most common rejection reasons.
3. Build complete mockups. Multiple angles, high resolution, consistent backgrounds, and all the colorways the school expects in that submission.
4. Include hangtags and trademark notices. Required notices and licensee statements get checked.
5. Fill in the product details: category, materials, country of origin, pricing and channels.
6. Submit and log it in your own tracker with the date and school.

For most schools, a complete submission comes back in roughly 2 to 5 business days. Schools that run their own internal review can take longer, and each revision round adds another full cycle. Our product approval workflow guide covers submissions and revisions in depth.

Two rules catch new licensees:

• First artwork is expected within about 30 days of a new school's approval. Have designs ready before the approval lands.
• Any change gets resubmitted, even a small color correction, so the finished product matches what was approved.

An approved school in BM360 is not permission to produce. Don't place a factory order until the agreement is signed, the category and channel are on your contract, and that exact design is approved.

Reading approval statuses and comments

Every submission ends up in one of a few states. The exact labels can shift as CLC updates the portal, but the meaning is consistent:

• Still in review. The school hasn't decided. If it's well past the usual turnaround, a polite follow-up is fair.
• Approved. You can produce this design for this school, in your approved categories and channels. Record the design's UPI (unique product identifier). You'll need it on every royalty report line for that product.
• Approved with comments. Read them. A reviewer note is a condition, not a suggestion, and the finished product needs to match it.
• Denied. Read the reason. You have 10 days to use BM360's resubmit function. Resubmitting keeps the design's history attached, so the reviewer can see what you changed.

How to respond to comments

• Address every comment explicitly. Miss one and you start another full cycle just to answer it.
• Upload clean, corrected files, not redlines, and reference the original feedback in the comment field.
• Change only what was flagged. New tweaks trigger a fresh review of the new elements.
• Use the reviewer's terms. If they called it a placement issue on the left chest, say left chest.

Reporting royalties in BM360

CLC royalty reports and payments are due monthly, by the 20th. The process each month:

1. Download CLC's Excel template and leave the headers exactly as they are.
2. Add a line for each royalty-bearing sale, with the UPI from that design's approval.
3. Add the CLC retailer code for each retailer you sold through.
4. Check every channel against your contract. Sales in a channel that isn't approved show up as error lines, so CLC sees them before you do.
5. Upload the report and pay by the 20th.

File a report even when you sold nothing. Missed reports lead to late fees, held artwork approvals or a lost license. A zero report takes minutes and protects everything else in your account.

The cleanest way to make reporting painless is to capture the UPI and retailer code at the moment of sale, in your order system or a shared sheet, instead of reconstructing them at month end.

Tips for managing many schools at once

At two or three schools, BM360 alone is enough. At ten or more, you need your own records alongside it:

• A school tracker with each approval date, the 90-day paperwork deadline, the 30-day first-artwork date and the renewal date.
• A submission registry with school, design, date submitted, status, revision count and expected response.
• A UPI map linking each approved design to your internal SKU, so royalty lines fill in cleanly.
• A retailer code list for every retailer you sell through.
• A channel matrix showing which channels and categories are approved at which school.
• One plan file per school, scrubbed of any other school's name before it goes in a request.
• A list of schools outside BM360, with the portal and reporting calendar each one uses. Other licensors run different clocks.

The common failure at scale isn't one big mistake. It's a missed zero report, a lapsed 90-day window or a design shipped with an unapproved color correction. Calendars and trackers prevent all three.

FAQ

What is BrandManager360?

Brand Manager 360 is CLC's licensee portal. Brands licensed with CLC schools use it to apply, add schools, request sales channels, submit designs for approval and file monthly royalty reports.

How do I log in to CLC Brand Manager 360?

Use the account your company created when it started its CLC application. If you've lost access or the person who set it up has left, contact CLC through the details in your onboarding emails rather than creating a second company profile.

Does every school use Brand Manager 360?

No. Only schools managed by CLC. Schools managed by Fanatics Licensing Management, Affinity Licensing and other agencies use their own portals, and some schools run licensing themselves by email.

How long do design approvals take in BM360?

For most schools, a complete submission comes back in roughly 2 to 5 business days. Schools with their own internal review can take longer, and every revision round adds another cycle.

When are CLC royalty reports due?

Monthly, by the 20th, using CLC's Excel template. Every royalty-bearing line needs a UPI and every retailer needs a CLC retailer code. File a report even in months with no sales.

Can I start production once a school approves me?

No. The agreement has to be signed, the category and channel have to be on your contract, and each design has to be approved first.

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BM360 changes over time, and each school adds its own requirements, so check the latest emails from CLC before relying on a specific detail. If you'd rather not run the portal yourself, Onbase handles licensing management: design submissions, monthly royalty reports and compliance across every school in your portfolio.