| Jersey Milking
By Patryk Fournier June 13th, 2005 |
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The same league that gave us the image of its players draping American flags over their warm-up suits logos at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics due to contradicting allegiances between shoe company endorsements is now seriously considering selling ad space on its jerseys. To fans, it comes across as the NBA acting like every other corporate sports entity seeking out and squeezing revenues from every imaginable source. To owners, jersey ad space is perceived as a new source of revenue to consider upon entering uncertain CBA negotiations. Selling ad space on jerseys isn't a new concept. At least outside of North American professional team sports it isn't. European soccer is without a doubt the authority on selling jersey ad space or more appropriately "naming rights". A typical club soccer jersey consists of a sponsor's name as the predominant brand followed with a smaller team crest. I've had conversations with fellow FourSport.ca writer Shawn about this very topic and he argues that he would much prefer to take the tradeoff of sponsored jerseys to the current alternative in North America of logo-based jerseys and the necessary TV commercials that interrupt play every few minutes.
Current and reigning English Premiership champions Chelsea have recently negotiated a new shirt sponsorship with Samsung after a four-year deal with Fly Emirates. The new five-year deal with Samsung will pay the soccer giants over $18M USD per year which tops the $16.2M USD Manchester United takes in from mobile phone company Vodafone. The shuffling of corporate English soccer powers is made full circle by Liverpool signing up with Fly Emirates on a new $9M USD per year deal. As impressive as all these deals are they pale in comparison to what ad-virgin Barcelona is ready to cash in on. In the 106 year history of the club Barcelona has never allowed advertisements to be worn on their jerseys but "shockingly" all it took to rewrite over a century's worth of history and principle was a large offer from the Beijing Summer Olympic committee. Barcelona will reportedly be paid over $38M USD per year to wear the 2008 host city's name on the front of their jersey. An Associated Press report also suggests that Barcelona will be paid a bonus $8.8M USD if they successfully win the European Champions League crown. The desire for these jersey partnerships is all about co-branding. The greater the popularity of the team, the more name recognition that is built by the company. Where the NBA and other leagues run into problems with co-branding is that there is risk in banking on someone else's brand. Imagine being a sponsor for the Jail Blazers and worrying about the image each Damon Stoudemire drug arrest projects on your company. Or what about being a team like the Houston Astros that had Enron as a corporate sponsor of their stadium. Like social and business situations in life it's all about who you associate with. Branding in a general sense can have its downfalls. The wildly popular iPod is distinguished by its signature white headphones. The only problem with this is that NYC tourism now has to warn people not to wear them on subways because criminals are targeting people on the basis of the white headphones. All I'm saying is that being upfront and recognizable with a brand can cause some repercussions. Consider the issue of contradictions with logos.
Depending on the strength of the rivalry between teams an allegiance with a specific sponsor may cause some cities to boycott a company's products simply because they don't want to support the enemy. It may sound silly but this actually happens with Real Madrid's shirt sponsor Siemens when they try to sell their products in Barcelona. Contradictions on a personal player level are also bound to happen. What happens if the Cavaliers sign a deal with Adidas and the Cavs have to answer to LeBron refusing to wear the jersey because he's paid a lot more to wear the swoosh? Just imagine the contradiction the Seattle SuperSonics would have had with Shawn Kemp back in the day if the team was sponsored by a contraceptive or the philosophical difference that the Knicks and Patrick Ewing would have had if they were sponsored by an anti-perspirant. The biggest issue that will send fans into a violent frenzy over this is the realization of the sudden cost to keep up with having the latest team jersey. You thought it was hard to keep up with all the jersey redesigns? Wait till you have to keep up with all the sponsor changes. In the end this may cause some fans to turn on the league worse than an IKEA liquidation sale can turn fellow humankind against itself. If you're ever in a big IKEA blowout sale take it from me; be prepared for some bloodshed, bruises and dirty tactics. An IKEA sale is definitely not a place for kids, when all was said and done it looked like the 'Malice at the Palace' brawl with kids balling, allen keys lying in rubble and people staring straight ahead in a dazed disbelief. Corporate branding in sports is unavoidable; for fans it simply comes down to a format of how we'll be bombarded. The NBA is simply considering a more unconventional approach for North America. In business terms the deal makes sense for the league because like soccer they have international reach, not to the level of soccer but with every Manu Ginobili and Yao Ming player to come along the league's reach and popularity continues to grow.
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