The NHL is close to becoming the first North American professional sports league to place ads on the jerseys of their respective teams
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Trendsetting is cool, especially when it can add as much as $120 million in your pockets.
The National Hockey League is on the verge of becoming the first professional sports league in North America to have ads on the jerseys (or in the NHL’s case, sweaters) of their respective teams. While the NBA has flirted with the prospect over the years, the NHL is all but in.
Placing ads on sweaters appeared to be dead issue when it was shot down by team presidents during a September meeting. However, the concept of adding as much as $120 million (which rounds out to $4 million for each of the NHL’s 3o teams) to a league that could use the extra windfall appears to have taken hold.
Sponsors claiming space on jerseys is nothing new to the rest of the world, as countless professional teams across the globe have been reaping the benefits for years. Major League Baseball was the first league in North America to ponder the move in 1999 by placing a logo on the sleeve of players’ uniforms, yet was shot down by then-Commissioner Bud Selig.
“It’s inevitable but will be perceived as a sell out and weakness by the first North American league to do so,” said Brian Cooper, president of S&E Sponsorship Group. “Even though English Premier League, Nascar and Euro hockey have done it. It’s the blatant commercialization of sport. It’s almost too close to the heart of sport.”
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