Bravo to Robert Sarver for not adding an ad patch (yet)

Is the NBA really in any need of more money?

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And that’s the biggest problem I have with patches in the first place. Less popular sports have included patches on uniforms for sometime, a sponsorship concept that has been reserved for struggling leagues, institutions of competition who truly do need as much cash as possible to literally keep their lights on and players on the field. Obviously NASCAR comes to mind as each team’s entire “uniform” and car is a billboard of many, many corporate sponsorships. But in recent years the WNBA and Arena/Indoor football league’s have been forced to add corporate advertisements to their jerseys as well.

The NBA is the first major professional sports league to add patches to gameday uniforms (the NBA, NFL, and NHL have corporate sponsors on practice jerseys). However, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said as far back as 2005 that if it were up to him, uniforms would have already been sponsored up. And he wasn’t alone. David Stern said that in the league’s prior season, NBA teams had lost money. Which as far as any of us know may have been true. So while at that time it seems like it may have made sense (at least for a couple of small market teams), again, now that the league is making money hand-over-fist with this new television deal, is that really an issue any more?

Earlier this year it was projected that the NBA could make up to $100M per year in sponsorship patch sales League-wide. In that same article Philadelphia 76ers CEO Scott O’Neil said that ”I’ve always been jealous of the English Premier League teams. NASCAR figured it out a long time ago…For some reason, the big four sports in North America have not. I think it’s an unbelievable opportunity.”

Great. So NBA execs have been jealous that other professional sports leagues use their uniforms as billboards and not as pure representations of the community, franchise, and people who live and die by their teams?

I’m not trying to fool myself or any of you about the business-nature of professional sports, but that’s an absolute shame.