Ads on Sports Jersey

Selling ad space on the team jersey is one of the great ways to generate revenue for sports teams. According to an article on Advertising Age, total income of selling ad space on jerseys of 20 English Premier League soccer teams was $155 million in the season of 2010. Each team got different amount of revenue by selling ad space, but Liverpool and Manchester United took 40% of the total amount of the advertisement income. Both teams took more than $30 million. On the other hand, 7 teams tool less than $1 million. Therefore, popular teams in the English Premier League can make more revenue from selling ad space on the jersey.

NASCAR

           
In the US sports, NASCAR is the great example of the success of selling ad space on the car. To operate a NASCAR team, it takes at least $15 million per one season. It is difficult to generate such amount of money from ticket sales and merchandise sales. So, NASCAR teams decided to sell ad space on their cars. There are three different types of sponsor to put ads on a car; associate sponsor, major sponsor, and primary sponsor. Associate sponsor pays $500,000 to $2 million, major sponsor pays $2 to $5 million, and primary sponsor pays $10 to $20 million to the team. Only Primary sponsor can put their ad on the car’s hood. Some racing teams can generate more revenue by getting more sponsors at the same time.

           
However, no team of NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB sell their jersey space as ad space. It doesn’t mean these leagues are not interested in selling as space on the jersey. Some leagues are very positive to put ads on their jersey. The WNBA and the NBA Development League has put ads on their jerseys. The NFL also put ads on the practice jerseys. These leagues are seeking what will happen if they put some companies’ logos on their uniforms. Once, MLB tried to sell ad space on bases, but the fans complained about that idea.

           
On the other article on Advertising Age, the US sports has a possibility to generate more than $370 million by selling ad space on jerseys. Also, this article shows the top three of potential ad value of the four major US sports. NFL teams had same ad value with $14,011,721. The highest ad value of the MLB teams was New York Yankees ($13,830,011). Los Angels Lakers leaded NBA ad value with$4,059,744. Chicago Blackhawks was the highest ad value in NHL with $1,372,007. As I mentioned last blog post, the NFL tries to develop as a whole league. Therefore, the ad values of top three teams might be the same amount.

           
A lot of companies are interested in putting their ads on the jerseys of the four major US sports teams because there are the great places to let people know about the brands at the same time. Also, this is a good way to get more income for each sports team. However, it might be difficult to put ads on jerseys because most of sports fans probably want to keep jerseys “clean” as the MLB fans.