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NBA 06.03.2012, 15:51 Redazione Sportando - E. Carchia 8

NBA teams to vote on jersey sponsorships in April?

A study calculated that a brand logo across the middle of an NBA team’s jersey occupying 3.5 percent of the TV screen would produce $31.18 million in exposure value

  With the NBA positioning itself as the most global of leagues, will it soon join the rest of the world by selling advertising on uniforms? The sticky issue will be debated, if not voted on, at the next board of governors meeting in April.

Of course, the most important issue is also the most basic. “The most appropriate question and the answer we’re all waiting for is, ‘What is it worth?’” said Golden State Warriors president and COO Rick Welts, who did the WNBA’s first uniform advertising deal between the Phoenix Mercury and LifeLock in 2009. “I am not suggesting this is an easy issue, but I feel like it is inevitable. We just have to agree on value and what it would look like.”

A study released last year by Horizon Media calculated that a brand logo across the middle of an NBA team’s jersey occupying 3.5 percent of the TV screen would produce $31.18 million in exposure value.

“Jersey ads are one of the last pieces of inventory that club marketers haven’t been able to sell, and for a local sponsor they could be a real boon, since it would give them exposure with a team at home and away,” said Michael Neuman, managing partner of Horizon’s Scout Sports and Entertainment.

The impact on some of the NBA’s more tradition-bound logos, and the disparity between potential revenue in various markets, are other factors to consider. Still, it’s hard to imagine a club marketer voting against the proposal, especially if would be their inventory.

“Obviously, it’s a league decision, but as someone who spent seven years at NASCAR, I know the value of putting a brand on the playing field and the uniform, so it is certainly something I would support,” said New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark. “You can monetize this in ways you can’t monetize any other kind of marketing inventory. And, of course, we’re in the No. 1 market in the country, so ...”

From potential sponsors, there’s an appetite.

“Without a doubt, there’s already interest,” said Mark Tatum, NBA executive vice president of global marketing partnerships, outside the league’s annual All-Star Technology Summit that was held at Orlando’s Waldorf-Astoria. “It’s certainly not automatic, but if we do it, it would be a big deal, so we are spending a lot of time evaluating.”

Added Sal LaRocca, NBA executive vice president of global merchandising: “The good news is that Adidas has a lot of experience with this from their football (soccer) business. We continue to talk internally about the best way to approach the market, determining whether having sponsored logos on jerseys would be incremental or just a diversion of money that would go somewhere else. We’re trying to balance a lot of constituencies.”  

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