The New York Knicks are the latest NBA team with a jersey sponsor, unveiling new jerseys for 2017-18 and beyond featuring the Squarespace logo.
The Knicks are the latest NBA team with a jersey sponsor. On Tuesday, the team announced a multi-year sponsorship deal with Squarespace, a website host, site builder and blogging platform.
Terms of the deal were not announced, but you can be sure the ad space didn’t come cheap. The NBA champion Warriors will reportedly rake in $20 million annually from their jersey sponsorship deal with Japanese tech company Rakuten. Squarespace will also “provide financial support and give digital advertising opportunities to local small businesses” that use their platform, ESPN’s Darren Rovell reports.
Sixteen other teams have announced jersey sponsors, including the Milwaukee Bucks (Harley-Davidson), the Boston Celtics (General Electric), the Cleveland Cavaliers (Goodyear) and the Orlando Magic (Disney). Most of the deals announced to this point are estimated to be worth between $5 and $10 million annually; the Warriors (as usual) scored higher than anyone else.
The logos will be displayed on home and away uniforms on the top left and fit into a space approximately 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches. As the league’s official uniform provider, Nike’s swoosh will also appear, on the top right.
The NBA is the first of the “big four” American team sports league to feature on-jersey advertising. The sale of sponsorships — a three-year experiment starting with the 2017-18 season — was approved by the league’s Board of Governors in 2015. The WNBA and the sports organization formerly known as the D-League have had sponsor logos on jerseys for some time already.
At the time of the announcement, NBA commissioner Adam Silver estimated the potential revenue at $100 million annually, but given the deals that have been reported to date it appears he underestimated the return significantly, with 13 teams yet to announce any deals.
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The revenue generated by jersey sponsorships will be counted as Basketball-Related Income (BRI). The NBA salary cap is determined based on a percentage of that annual income.