The Future Of Jersey Sponsorships Across US Sports Leagues
Huddle Up is a 3x weekly newsletter that breaks down the business and money behind sports. Subscribers include investors, professional athletes, team owners, and casual fans. So if you are not already a subscriber, sign up and join 88,000+ others who receive it directly in their inbox each week — it’s free. Today’s Newsletter Is Brought To You By The Farmer’s Dog!
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This is nothing new, of course. Premier League clubs have been selling shirt sponsorships since the 1970s — Liverpool was the first top-flight English football club to have a shirt sponsor when they signed a 2-year, £100,000 deal with Hitachi in 1979 — and it has since become a primary source of income for each club. For example, about a quarter of Manchester United’s $700 million in annual revenue comes from their shirt alone — $90 million from official kit supplier Adidas, $57 million from main sponsor TeamViewer, and $24 million from sleeve sponsor DKC.
But even with all that commercial success in Europe, jersey sponsorships have never really been a thing in America — until now. Major American Sports Leagues Start To ExperimentSmaller leagues like MLS and the WNBA have had jersey sponsorships since the mid-2000s. This allowed them to maximize revenue during their early growth years, and it wasn’t seen as that much of a risk since the leagues were relatively small at the time. But the NBA, MLB, and NHL have since followed in their footsteps and now allow some form of uniform sponsorship — and while the world’s biggest sports league, the NFL, still does not allow game jersey sponsors, they do allow practice jersey sponsors. But how much are these leagues and teams actually making? Well, let’s run through each of them. The NBA Makes A Permanent ChangeThe NBA began allowing jersey patch sponsors at the start of the 2017-18 season. The sponsorship covers a 2.5-inch-by-2.5-inch patch on the top corner of each team’s jersey, and teams can also sell sponsorships across practice and warmup gear. 
The Brooklyn Nets have signed a MONSTER jersey patch deal with brokerage platform @WebullGlobal. At about $30M annually, that’s 50% more than either the Golden State Warriors or LA Lakers receive. It’s also 3x what Barclays pays for naming rights to the Nets arena in Brooklyn.
The financials of these deals are typically kept private. Still, the biggest teams — Lakers, Warriors, Nets, etc. — are reportedly signing deals worth $20 million to $30 million annually, and the average deal is probably around $10 million annually. List of NBA jersey sponsors (87% of teams)
The NBA’s jersey patch program is now bringing in about $225 million in annual revenue for teams across the league. That represents a ~5% revenue increase for the average team, and the NBA decided to extend the program after an initial 2-year test. The NHL Dives In Head-First
The NHL began allowing one sponsor patch on jerseys at the start of the 2022-23 season and helmet sponsors at the start of the 2020-21 season. These patches can be on the left and right shoulders or the left and right chest. And similar to how the NBA’s program initially started, the NHL doesn’t expect most of its teams to have jersey patch sponsors through the 2023-24 season. The league also allows each team to sign sponsors for their helmets. List of NHL jersey sponsors (38% of teams)
List of NHL helmet sponsors (84% of teams)
Similar to the NBA, the financials behind these deals are relatively unknown, and they also typically include traditional sponsorship inventory as well — arena signage, corporate activations, on-ice advertisements, and more. But still, the going rate is believed to be $5 million to $10 million a year for each team, and it’s projected to eventually generate $100 million in new revenue for the league. Major League Soccer Looks To Expand Its Footing
As I mentioned before, Major League Soccer has allowed front-of-jersey sponsorships since 2007. And in 2020, the league also began allowing sponsorships to be sold on the sleeve of game jerseys. Nearly all MLS teams have signed front-of-jersey sponsorship deals, and about 50% of teams have already signed sleeve sponsors, with some deals reaching mid-seven figures. List of MLS jersey sponsors (97% of teams)
As with most of the other leagues, the total amount of revenue generated by shirt sponsorships across MLS is unknown, but most deals range between $3 million to $7 million per year — so multiply the lower end of that range ($5 million) by the number of teams (29), and you get $145 million in annual revenue. Major League Baseball Looks To Make A SplashThis coming 2023 season, Major League Baseball will allow teams to have jersey sponsor patches on the uniform’s arm sleeve. But given it’s the first season coming up for this new allowance, we’re still in the early stages of the market’s development.
Only five teams (17%) have signed sponsorship deals so far, and the range is pretty wide, with deals priced anywhere from $5 million to $17 million annually. List of MLB jersey sponsors (17% of teams)
This market is still developing, and more teams will surely sign deals over the coming months and years, but one thing to note is that the patches seem significantly bigger than their counterparts in the NBA and other leagues. What About The NFL?The elephant in the room when talking about jersey sponsorships across major US sports leagues is that even though the NFL is the only league not to participate, they still make a significant amount more in sponsorship revenue than everybody else.
Of course, the world’s most profitable sports league could extend its lead by letting individual teams sell jersey sponsorships for an estimated $20 million to $30 million each season — but there is currently no indication that they will do that. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Monday is Presidents Day, so we’ll talk on Wednesday. Interested in advertising with Huddle Up? Email me. Your feedback helps me improve Huddle Up. How did you like today’s post? Loved | Great | Good | Meh | Bad How The Savannah Bananas Became The Greatest Show in BaseballHuddle Up is a 3x weekly newsletter that breaks down the business and money behind sports. Subscribers include investors, professional athletes, team owners, and casual fans. So if you are not already a subscriber, sign up and join 88,000+ others who receive it directly in their inbox each week — it’s free. Huddle Up is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Huddle Up that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.
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