Advertising on Uniforms

[Allie Fox]

The Coming of the Goldman Sachs Yankees


I ran across this article and in the ensuing discussion saw a debate over whether or not the Yankees would in fact "cave" to their strong capitalist urges or maintain their sense of "tradition."

A point was made that that Yankees would (and have) put ads on uniforms (some Japan Exhibition game) only if mandated to do so by MLB because their adherence to tradition is very strong as evidenced by the fact they have had the same uniforms for nearly 100 years.

However, countr to that someone pointed out that the Yankees are not above selling replica jerseys with numbers and names on them (my own son has a #7 jersey with MANTLE on the back) all for the benefit of another dollar in their coffers.

The article is pretty articulate and seems to indicate that someday we will likely see team sponsorships emblazoned on jerseys but that MLB and the NFL will be slow to adopt.

I wonder if the NYC Convention and Visitors Bureau sponsored the Royals if they would become the NYC Royals of Kansas City.

[BSmile]

On this same idea (not the Yankees, but ads on unis), Paul Lukas, who runs www.uni-watch.com also had an excellent article on uniform ads here: Meet the McDonald's Mets?.

It starts: "American culture is routinely derided as being overly commercial, overly capitalistic. But there’s one potentially lucrative realm that Americans have consistently declined to exploit commercially, even as the rest of the world has done so: Our professional sports teams do not carry advertising or sponsorships on their uniforms.

To be sure, virtually every other aspect of the American sporting experience is now rife with advertising, from stadiums named after corporations (Minute Maid Park, the FedEx Forum, and so on) to the seemingly endless parade of sponsored game segments during TV and radio broadcasts (“Let’s check out the Verizon starting lineup…”). But the uniforms of the major-level North American professional sports leagues—the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball, collectively known as the Big Four—remain advertising-free zones.

That stands in stark contrast to professional sports uniforms throughout the rest of the world. Japanese and South American baseball, European hockey, Australian football, the international soccer, cricket, and rugby circuits—all feature various forms of uniform ads, ranging from small sleeve patches to garish multi-ad treatments that reduce the players to little more than billboards.

(Yes, American golfers, tennis players, NASCAR racers, and boxers wear advertising on their togs. But that’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, because those athletes compete in individual sports, not on teams where every player is under the larger visual umbrella of a uniform.)..."

[BombSquad]

No sport is truly advertisement free. The players are advertising by just wearing their gear. For example when people see Gordon Beckham and Troy Tulowitzki wearing evoshields think about how many kids see that and say I want one and go out and buy one. Or they see CC's new Jordan brand Cleats and beg Mom to get a pair along with a new 35 dollar Yankees hat.