As you’ve probably heard, NBA uniforms will be undergoing lots of changes next season. Nike will be taking over from Adidas as the league’s uniform outfitter, the Nike logo will be added to jerseys and shorts, sleeves may be on the way out, and — most notably — teams will be permitted to wear corporate advertising patches on the upper-left region of their jerseys.
The jersey advertising rollout has gone slowly, with only five teams having gone public so far: the 76ers (whose ad patch is from StubHub), Kings (Blue Diamond Almonds), Celtics (GE), Nets (Infor), and Jazz (Qualtrics). In addition, the Cavaliers will reportedly be going with Goodyear, although the team hasn’t unveiled the patch yet.
That adds up to six teams, or 20 percent of the league — enough for us to draw some preliminary conclusions about the jersey advertising program. Here are the five biggest takeaways so far:
1. Shape and color matter. Generally speaking, uniform ads look awful. But awfulness, like everything else, is a relative concept, and some of the ads definitely look less awful than others. A circular patch, for example, fits better into the jersey’s upper-chest than a square patch. And if the advertiser is willing to have its logo appear in the team’s colors, instead of the advertiser’s usual corporate colors, the ad is less obtrusive.
The Celtics have done the best in this regard. Their GE patch is round and appears in the team’s standard green-white color scheme.
ICYMI: GE’s advertising patch on Celtics’ jerseys next season will be in team colors. pic.twitter.com/Nuicrv0Fte
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) February 21, 2017
ICYMI: GE’s advertising patch on Celtics’ jerseys Sekabet next season will be in team colors. pic.twitter.com/Nuicrv0Fte
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) February 21, 2017
At the other end of the spectrum are the Nets, whose square, red Infor patch sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. That’s not such a bad thing from Infor’s standpoint, but it’s a downer for anyone who cares about uniform aesthetics and team branding integrity.
NEWS: We’re looking forward to the future, and we’re proud that @Infor will be a part of it. pic.twitter.com/EAUgekqz2e
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) February 8, 2017
NEWS: We’re looking forward to the future, and we’re proud that @Infor will be a part of it. pic.twitter.com/EAUgekqz2e
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) February 8, 2017
2. There’s a tech bubble. When the NBA announced the jersey ad patch program, many observers assumed that the most of the advertisers (please, don’t call them sponsors) would be lifestyle brands. That hasn’t turned out to be the case, at least so far. Instead, three of the initial advertisers — GE, Infor and Qualtrics — are tech companies, and they’ve all said that they’ll be providing data-analytics services to their respective NBA team partners. So the uni ad program may have the inadvertent side effect of ushering in a new era of NBA performance metrics and data crunching — something nobody could have foreseen when the program was announced.
3. You can do good while doing well. The Jazz had originally planned to wear a standard Qualtrics ad patch. But Qualtrics had recently launched a charity initiative called Five for the Fight, which raises funds to find a cure for cancer, so the Qualtrics folks suggested that the Jazz wear the charity’s logo instead. The Jazz agreed, and the result is that the Jazz will be wearing a patch that supports a good cause instead of a corporate enterprise. Good for them.
This move by the Jazz instantly makes all of the standard ad patches seem craven and greed-driven by comparison. Will any other teams opt to go this route? Stay tuned.
You will see the #FiveForTheFight patch on our jerseys starting next season!