Footy leagues around the world have been doing it for years, and it’s only a matter of time before we’ll see it happening with all the North American pro sports franchises.
The NBA in the 2017-18 season will be the first pro league over here to do it.
But jesus-to-high-murphy…to see my Flyers logo replaced by, say…Depend or something equally disheartening. I’ll wager Viagra and Hooters will be the first to get snatched up.
Some of the European hockey jerseys - wow - you almost need sunglasses to look at them.
Any, say, Yankees fans here looking forward to having Hello Kitty or Haliburton gracing their hallowed threads?
I can’t see the big three US leagues doing what European soccer does, with a corporate logo on jerseys with no mention of the team itself. The teams ARE a huge brand already. Fans buy Yankees jerseys, I can’t see them buying AT&T jerseys that the Yankees happen to wear.
I know I won’t. I wouldn’t buy any jersey or team apparel that has anything else on it but the team and the manufacturer.
The Canadian Football League has done this for some years now. The patches are small; and as is traditional in North American football (high school, college, professional) the player’s number is quite prominent on his chest. The patches don’t detract, in other words; and if that’s all that is going to happen, then it’s nothing to be worried about.
In international soccer, teams must accumulate monetary assets to buy players to stay competitive lest they get relegated to lower leagues, so any form of income they can get, including jersey sponsorships are essential, and I think even looked at as “cool”. There is no relegation in American soccer, but because its so accepted in international soccer, jersey sponsorships are fine because now its part of the game. For example, I couldn’t wait to run out to buy my “BIMBO” sponsored Philadelphia Union jersey, and love my “Lehigh Valley Health Network” sponsored Bethlehem Steel kit. If that cash helps the Union win the MLS Cup, I’m in!
Similar to this is auto racing, another true competitive meritocracy where cultivating sponsorship money is essential to success.
My problem with NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL teams is that most, not all of them play in publicly financed stadiums; and are protected by monopolies, so fans have no choice in who they root for locally. Plus, all four leagues have a form of a salary cap, so its not like s sponsorship will help them sign a better player to help my team win. Hence, traditionally, corporate logos on their jerseys seem like just a cheap money grab.
Im a 76ers fan, and wont lose sleep if theres a small “StubHub” patch on their jerseys, but if I see the Philadelphia Eagles march onto the field with “Comcast” blazened on their helmets, there will be hell to pay!
But having been a soccer fan for well on 40 years, I’m so used to the corporate logos on professional soccer jerseys that they somehow wouldn’t look right without them.
Back in the early days of MLS there were no ads on their jerseys. I think it just made them look less professional then they were already judged to be by world soccer conventional wisdom.
I’ve always found it a bit odd that super-corporate-everything America would be the one country that had no ads or corporate logos on major professional sports leagues jerseys.
If / when it starts here it will seem out of place but I’ll still think: “What took so long?”
“Talen Energy Stadium (formerly known as PPL Park) is an American soccer-specific stadium located in Chester, Pennsylvania and is home to the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer.[7] The project is the result of combined commitments of $30 million from Delaware County and $47 million from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Talen Energy is the stadium’s naming rights sponsor.” Cite - Wiki
Additionally, MLS has salary restrictions in place as well.
The advantage in the salary cap leagues you mention is that many teams do not have revenue streams that allow them to spend to the cap. To what degree this is true for each team in each league is debatable. Nevertheless, no sports franchise is going to not look at potential revenue streams.
I agree with this, something is definitely lost when a stadium loses its name. I say this as my local stadium (The Citrus Bowl) just lost it’s name to sponsorship (Camping World Stadium)
“It’s a bloodbath here at MaxiPad park!”
Sooooo were you being ironic or trying to make a point with your “hidden” link? or are you spamming?
Yeah I saw that, but I keep getting the niggling thought that that will only be the “foot in the door”, as franchises, over time, realise that bonanza revenue streams will come in if they completely ditch the front logo (or team crest or whatever you want to call it) and replace it with, say, Vision Network, or Flinstones Chewable Vitamins.
Is any of this any different from the Nike and Under Armor logos that have graced pro sports teams jerseys for years? When I was in high school I had to use black shoe polish to hide the Adidas stripes on my football cleats, brand identifiable items were not allowed on the field. This was the early 70’s. I had to buy my shoes then, the same high school now get’s it’s shoes for free from Nike.
That’s odd, I would think it’s hard to get no-brand cleats.
Track and cross-country(high school) don’t regulate shoes, only non-uniform items worn under the uniform.
It is, yeah. I think there’s two major differences.
First, Nike and Under Armor are the actual brands of the clothing. Nobody ever had a problem with a ballplayer’s bats saying “Louisville Slugger” on them because the bat is, in fact, a Louisville Slugger. Hockey players wield Sherwood sticks, basketball players sport Adidas shoes, etc., but they have to use those things because they are tools of the trade and you have to buy them from somewhere. (Forcing a kid to black out the stripes on his cleats strikes me as being insane, incidentally.)
Secondly, where European leagues and North American leagues differ is in the prominence of such things. If you see a person wearing the uniform of the Boston Red Sox, the most distinctive aspects of the of the uniform are that the player represents a team from Boston, and the team is called the Red Sox. If you’ll examine the uniform of a player on Manchester United, you’d have to get pretty close to have any idea the guy played for Manchester, because the uniform is largely that of the Chevrolet automobile manufacturer. Plucky little Leicester City sport kit that says “King Power,” whatever that means. To the eyes of a Canadian fan like me, their jerseys look like the crap worn by recreational softball teams to have to get a corporate sponsor to raise $800 to afford shirts at all.
Of course I realize this stuff will raise millions so I might as well just accept that pretty soon the Blue Jays’ uniforms will not say “Blue Jays” but will have a beer logo on them.