PROVIDENCE — In a state with surging unemployment and a declining corporate presence, you’d think selling college sports sponsorships would be a salesperson’s worst nightmare. Not quite.

Thanks to previous decisions to outsource their marketing efforts, the athletic departments at both Providence College and Brown University say they’re happy with the exposure their programs are getting. More importantly, they both say they’re richer on the bottom line in an environment of belt-tightening at both schools.

Both PC and Brown have joined several other schools and college conferences in partnering with Nelligan Sports Marketing, a New Jersey company that shops the Friars and the Bears to local, regional and even national clients. The company is responsible for everything from selling Keno Davis commercials on the radio, to placing Sharaud Curry on billboards alongside Route 95, to lining the fences at Brown Stadium with advertisements. Nelligan also secured PC’s radio-rights deal with WEEI-FM and its local TV package with Cox Sports.

“To do what they do for us, I’d have to hire five or six people, and we don’t have that capability,” said PC athletic director Bob Driscoll. “They guarantee me a certain number every year for my budget, and in this economic environment that is very important to Providence College.”

Nelligan is far from the only outfit in the sports marketing game. Fenway Sports Group, a company created by the Red Sox ownership group, handles Boston College’s marketing. North Carolina-based ISP contracts with five Big East schools, plus the conference’s lucrative men’s basketball tournament. Besides Brown and PC, Nelligan has contracts with the PAC-10, Louisville, West Virginia, Marquette, Rutgers, Pennsylvania and Princeton, among others.

John Egan, vice president for Nelligan’s New England properties, says the company’s business model is simple. The schools receive a percentage fee every year in return for marketing rights for the athletic department and sometimes the university as a whole. If certain goals are met, the schools and Nelligan enjoy the upside.

“Providence has been a good model for us,” Egan says. “They used to market on a local or regional basis and now they’re involved with companies like United Healthcare, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Taco Bell. Providence is thrilled to be involved with deals like that.”

PC announced this week that it is extending its agreement with Nelligan through 2016 and for a larger percentage fee, according to Driscoll. When the school began its relationship with the company in 2001, corporate sponsorships were just below $200,000. Egan says those revenues have increased roughly five times over the last eight years. Nelligan officials would not release any further financial details in the company’s deal with either school.

Brown is in the second year of a five-year deal with the company. Its impact is clear for anyone who listens to Bears football or basketball contests on the radio. In previous years, the Brown Bookstore and Brown Sports Foundation seemed like the only two advertisers. Now fans hear ads from local businesses and national brands.

“Nelligan has put us ahead of where we were without them and they are ahead of where they were last year. And it’s clearly a tough time to be selling to sponsors,” Brown athletic director Mike Goldberger said. “We think as the economy improves, this relationship will only work out even better for both of us.”

One of Nelligan’s showpiece schools is Louisville. According to the company Web site, sponsorship revenues there have risen from less than $1 million to more than $6 million in just five years.

“Louisville is a great property and really rose when the school hired Rick Pitino and enjoyed great success,” said Egan. “It’s clear that if Providence ever had some big success in a Big East Tournament or the NCAAs, you’d see that pop of national exposure that everyone is looking for.”

Egan says he’s already seen an impact in having a nationally renowned school such as Brown under contract.

“What our schools have seen is an expansion of their brand nationally, and they hear from their alums on that front,” he said. “We can sell Brown and its alums and tradition and what a great institution it is on a national scale. Companies want access to a school like Brown.”

Both Driscoll and Goldberger have had to cut staff in recent years because of budget constraints. To see their brands expanded over the same time is a welcome development.