Advertising on Jerseys

With sports teams trying to find new avenues of income some of the purity of the sport is being drained away. Slowly, the original names of the stadiums and arenas gave way to corporate sponsors. Obviously, the inside of these stadiums and arenas are covered in advertising on scoreboards, boards, and even in the bathrooms. Now, NBA teams will soon be advertising on jerseys.

The Boston Celtics, Sacramento Kings, and Philadelphia 76ers were the first to unveil their new ads that will be on their jerseys in the 2017-2018 season. The Brooklyn Nets joined the new trend this past week with their deal with Infor. Eventually other teams will follow their lead as other teams have contacted the Celtics to inquire how much they made from their advertising deal with GE.

And this won't be where the trend ends. NHL, NFL, and MLB teams will follow soon afterward. Anything for an extra dollar.  

There is something special about buying a jersey of your favorite player and wearing it out in public, especially at sports events. Instead everyone buying an NBA at the end of this year will effectively be a walking billboard.

This isn't new in sports. Soccer has been doing it for a long time already, but America never fully embraced soccer as one of their own sports. NASCAR has been doing it forever too, but for some reason it never bugged the fans. Perhaps this is because there isn't an official team jersey for each driver as a team such as the Boston Celtics has. It started off that the cars were advertised on before the drivers themselves wore the ads on their driver suits.

There was just something simple about wearing a jersey that only featured your favorite team and/or player. Within five years, that feeling will probably disappear now that this trend has started. It's a shame because even though sports teams are multi-billion dollar business, the jerseys were still pure.

Now that feeling is gone.