Remember how your Little League team was sponsored by that local business in town? Yeah, that’s what the NBA is about to do, but on a much bigger scale.
It was revealed last month that starting with the 2017-2018 season, the NBA would start selling advertising space on team’s jerseys. Well, the first one was announced this morning: the Philadelphia 76ers will be sponsored by StubHub. OK, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The team that can’t win games will definitely have some cheap tickets on resale.
The 76ers are the first of what will likely be many sponsored NBA jerseys. Of course, the Celtics are an NBA team and there is an opportunity to make money here, so logically, they will probably jump on this trend.
For what it’s worth the WNBA has had jersey sponsors since 2009, so the NBA is a little late on that. And EuroLeague teams look like they’re on a commercial or something.
To answer the big question: yes, the jerseys you buy at the store will have the exact same ads as the team’s jersey. Well, in that case they better be cheaper because you shouldn’t have to pay $130 to advertise a company.
The players aren’t really hurt by the move and it makes more money for the league. Fans might not like it as much but Ali Express is the one taking the real hit. Yeah, that sketchy Chinese site that sells all the unlicensed jerseys. The most difficult part of the jersey for them to make is the tag, so just imagine how tough it will be for them counterfeit patches onto a jersey. Adam Silver 1, Ali Express 0.
It could not be all that bad. After all, Brad Stevens said last year that he was not exactly against it so take that for however much you value his opinion on this topic.