Sponsors are key to any team’s financial stability. They are, of course, shown in large enough fashion for everyone to see. From jerseys to the side of race cars, they’re there and organizations make increasing efforts to make them fit their uniforms. Soccer is pretty familiar with this, so is the NBA as they took on wearing patches since 2017. Baseball, however, not so much. This is especially important as one of the most overlooked aspects of the return of baseball was the possibility of adding sponsorship patches to uniforms starting this year.
In order to understand how they might look like, we must take a look at what other leagues do. Other baseball leagues, that is.
“Insert Your Logo Here”
Winter Leagues in Latin America and the Caribbean are quite comfortable with wearing logos on their jerseys. Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are a few examples of this. These leagues typically wear a few sponsors on their sleeves and a bigger one on the back where a name would typically sit on an MLB jersey.
While Caribbean leagues take advertising in moderation, no one does things like the Mexican Pacific League. Jersey sponsors come in bunches in the land of mariachis. So much that at times, players look like moving Yellow Pages.
Sponsors are everywhere. Not only that but they’re fully controlled by the league. Teams don’t deal directly with sponsors and while they do get a share of the revenue, they’re limited to choosing who to sport on their unis. Jerseys are sold sponsor-less at official team stores
While uniform sponsors are a rare thing in the MLB, they’ve been used before.
Patches Overseas
Major League Baseball has worn other companies’ logos before. They’ve done it outside the States thought. For instance, Japan’s TokyoDome played host to the 2004 Opening Day game between the Yankees and the Rays. While they were minimal, they were visible enough. New York and Tampa Bay wore the logo of Japanese electronics company Ricoh on their sleeve and on the side of their helmets.
Patches have adorned MLB jerseys abroad over the years. Yasiel Puig and Marcell Ozuna served as billboards as both Cardinals and Reds adorned their helmets with Ford logos for the 2019 Mexico Series. Over in London, Yankees and Red Sox showed Mitel logos on their helmets. The Canadian telecommunications company partnered with MLB in 2018 to implement their services into bullpens and closed phone circuits. Additionally, baseball’s most bitter rivals wore Biofreeze logos. The pain relief brand also partners with the league.
While purists might reject the idea of permanently adding logos to something as pristine and iconic as the Yankee pinstripes, slapping them on jerseys is a no brainer, more so after the Coronavirus hit.
Teams Got to Get their Money
Sponsor patches make perfect sense in 2020 and beyond. If it didn’t before, it does now after COVID-19 almost canceling the 2020 baseball season. Losses are projected at $$640,000 per game. While they might soften up a bit thanks to the shortened season, financial losses might still be pretty bad. Not to mention, hard to recover from. Enter patches.
Studies suggest that allowing ads on uniforms could generate up to $11 million in brand value per team every year. Multiply that by 30 and you get $330 million, This is more than double of the $150 million the NBA makes each year. It makes sense when you think of the fact that baseball players stay put in the box, therefore, companies get more airtime and, teams make more money.
Dig Yourselves Out of the Hole
The current pandemic has, is, and will be devastating for baseball. Not only has it generated millions of dollars in losses, it also served as a magnifying glass for every other problem in the sport. While not much can be done about the latter until 2021 come a new CBA, owners can sure start addressing their economic struggles.
Regardless of what you think of Rob Manfred and the owners, money has and will be lost. This is an obvious way to get some of it back. Besides, patches will be pretty discrete judging by how the league has implemented them before. It’s not as if San Diego will go KBO style and rename themselves the “Petco Padres”
If any of the new rules and regulations deserve to stay after the end of the season, it’s this one. It’s time to embrace the patch.