Before last season began, the NBA went through an extensive process of reaching a mutual agreement with the NBPA on a new CBA. The process took much longer than anticipated and resulted in another NBA lockout that delayed the start of the 2011-12 NBA season until Christmas Day.
Fortunately, despite a delayed start to the year, the result of a 66-game season was much better than anticipated. Even though the NBA was able to come to an agreement that would help boost revenue moving forward with the new CBA, the league is still considering options in order to bring in even more money.
Recently, the league made a bold move by considering advertisements being placed on NBA jerseys starting in the 2013-14 NBA season. This kind of advertisement placement has been done for quite some time in European soccer with some of the most successful sports franchises overseas like Manchester United, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona bringing in millions in revenue on an annual basis with advertisements on their jerseys.
Revenue projections for the jerseys ads have the NBA bringing in upwards of an extra $100 million per season. Obviously, the addition of the ads on NBA jerseys has appealed to the league and many advertisers in the United States. With some teams in the league failing to make profit, the addition of ads on jerseys is a step in the right direction in order to make a profit throughout the league rather than a few teams.
The size of the ads on NBA jerseys will be 2.5 inches-by-2.5 inches according to Deputy Commissioner David Silver via Ira Boudway of BusinessWeek.com:
“Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said that team owners were broadly in favor of a plan to put 2.5-by-2.5-inch sponsor patches above the heart on team uniforms.”
It’s no surprise that these jerseys ads have created quite a buzz around the league with mixed feelings towards the new advertisements for the 2013-14 season. Even though some are opposed to seeing ads on jerseys in the NBA, it hard to argue with the fact that these advertisements have been extremely successful in bringing in revenue for professional sports teams overseas.
With the NBA in need of extra revenue, adding jersey ads is a good start as long as it doesn’t get out of control. A patch on the shoulder isn’t as bad as it seems and eventually will become common place.
The NFL is also seriously considering the addition of ads on jerseys for all 32 teams. If the NBA ultimately goes through with implementing advertisements on jerseys, the NFL will almost certainly follow.
