Endwell, NY – Visions Federal Credit Union is teaming up with local New York colleges, SUNY Cortland and Ithaca College, for a four-year partnership commemorating their 67th annual Cortaca Jug regular-season rivalry game.
This partnership marks the Cortaca Jug’s first ever naming sponsorship, as well as its second time at Yankee Stadium, with a date set for November 14th, 2026.
Since 1959, the Cortaca Jug is a cherished tradition among locals and even national football fans. Each year, a Division III football game between SUNY Cortland and Ithaca College is scheduled, where the winning team brings home glory, hometown pride, bragging rights, and a ceramic milk jug filled with the scores from each of the previous years’ bouts.
Since then, the event has grown significantly, drawing increasingly larger crowds with one of their biggest turnouts coming from the 2022 game played at Yankee Stadium, gathering more than 40,000 fans into stadium seats.
“Visions has been fortunate to serve members in both Tompkins and Cortland Counties for several years,” said Tim Strong, Visions’ Assistant Vice President for Branding and Community Impact, referring to the established Visions branch locations in Ithaca and Cortland. “Opportunities like this don’t pop up every day – for us it was an obvious ‘yes.’”
Another aspect of this partnership involves bringing accessible financial wellness education courses to both campuses. “We’ve been offering financial wellness services on campus at both Syracuse University and Binghamton University, so to serve and educate students at Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland seemed like the perfect opportunity to expand on that commitment,” comments Strong. “For Visions, investing time, effort, and resources into providing financial wellness to the newest generations of college students is a high priority, and we’re proud to be able to reach as many communities as we have.”
You can purchase tickets to the Cortaca Jug presented by Visions FCU today by visiting: cortland.edu/cortaca-tickets
About the Cortaca Jug:
Cortland and Ithaca first met on the gridiron in 1930, and in 1959 the Cortaca Jug "traveling trophy" (utilizing portions of both the Cortland and Ithaca names) was introduced for the winning team. Cortland's Tom Decker '61, a team captain, and his friend Dick Carmean, an Ithaca captain, turned a ceramic milk jug purchased for $2 at a yard sale in Homer, N.Y., into the original Cortaca Jug. The score from each year's regular-season game between the schools was added to the jug, necessitating a second jug to be created in 1985 and a third one in 2016.
"The Biggest Little Game in the Nation" earned its nickname in 1991 from Sports Illustrated. "The biggest little game in the nation could turn out to be Ithaca vs. SUNY Cortland by the shores of New York state's Cayuga Lake on Nov. 9, 1991," wrote sportswriter John Walters in the Aug. 26, 1991 edition.
After decades of drawing sellout crowds on the two campuses, the game reached new heights in 2019 when the teams played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., in front of a Division III record 45,161 fans. In 2022, the teams played at Yankee Stadium with a crowd of 40,232, the second-best attendance in Division III history. Since 2010, only eight of 25 football games at Yankee Stadium have drawn more than 40,000 fans — four involving Notre Dame, two with Penn State, the Division I Lafayette-Lehigh rivalry game, and the 2022 Cortaca Jug game.
About Visions
Visions Federal Credit Union is a not for profit financial institution completely owned by its members. Established in 1966, Visions proudly serves over 250,000 members in communities throughout New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Services include banking as well as auto, home, personal, and business loans. Visit www.visionsfcu.org for more information. Federally insured by NCUA. Equal Housing Lender.
