MLB Releases Final Details of Jersey and Helmet Sponsorships

[Melissa Berman]

Picture this- it’s 2023 and you’re watching the Twins play an away game on TV. Byron Buxton (fresh off of a career, MVP-caliber 2022 season, by the way) steps up to the plate and gets settled into the box, the camera focused intently on him. And right there practically enveloping his left sleeve is a giant Target Bullseye (or a US Bank logo or the face of a certain well-known realtor) staring back. 

Back to reality now- these days, nearly everything has a sponsor, and in 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) jerseys will be no exception. For helmets, sponsorship might even come as early as the 2022 postseason.

In March, news broke that MLB and the MLB Player's Association (MLBPA) had agreed to implement jersey advertising as a part of its new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Now, fans have a little more clarity on what these jersey sponsorships will look like. According to recent guidance from the league, individual clubs can begin reaching sponsorship deals for patches beginning in the 2023 season. If a team does not get a deal done, they will not have a sponsor patch, it's on them. Logos will be 4-by-4 inches and can be placed on either the right or left sleeve of the team’s on-field uniform. A team must stick with a sponsor for at least a year, and they must use the same logo for at least a season too. 

On April 19, the San Diego Padres became the first MLB team to announce a jersey sponsor deal- a 2023 partnership with Motorola. The Padres also released a mockup of what their 2023 jerseys will look like with the Motorola "M" on the sleeve. No, Chris Paddack, it’s not a UPS logo.  

When negotiating jersey sponsors, teams will have a few constraints. The league and MLBPA must approve all the planned patches, and patches advertising alcohol, betting and media brands are prohibited.

Fans will be given the option to buy jerseys with and without the sponsor logo. Team stores will sell authentic jerseys with sponsor patches at the ballpark, and replica jerseys sold by retailers will come without them.  

While jersey patches will not arrive until 2023, helmet decals could arrive as early as the 2022 postseason. However, unlike sponsor patches, helmet decals will be a league sponsor, not negotiated by the individual team. 

Jersey and helmet sponsor patches are not entirely new- MLB teams have used them during special games in the past like the 2019 Yankees and Red Sox London Series and its past Opening Day games in Japan. 

The NFL is now the only major U.S. professional sports league without plans for jersey advertising. Major League Soccer was the first to implement jersey sponsor patches in 2007. Next came the NBA, which added small sponsor patches on the front of jerseys during the 2017-2018 season. The Minnesota Timberwolves are currently on their second uniform sponsor, Aura, after having partnered with FitBit for three seasons. The NHL, which already has helmet sponsors, also plans to allow jersey patches during the 2023 season.

My take: Baseball uniforms are synonymous with tradition. Look back at pictures of uniforms from the very beginning of baseball in the 1800s and it is evident that uniforms really have not changed all that much, especially considering the amount of innovation in all other aspects of the game. Yes materials are better, the size of shirt collars have shrunk, and the fit of baseball pants is tighter (especially if you are Robbie Ray), but uniforms have remained largely unchanged since the beginning of baseball. Do modern MLB jerseys really need buttons down the front? Not really, outside of the fact they’ve always had them. 

Considering advertising has permeated nearly everything in sports (3M Arena at Mariucci, anyone?) I am not surprised that MLB jerseys are the next frontier. But I dislike how ads have crept onto jerseys across sports, especially in baseball and hockey, two sports heavy in tradition with their uniforms.  

I know that it is within MLB’s rights to raise money how they want, and inventing new places to advertise is essentially like printing free money, but I do not like the direction this is going. Not everything needs a sponsor, not everything needs to be monetized. I don't mind ads on walls or boards, but the players themselves? Ads on players effectively transform them into walking, sliding billboards and make the jerseys look amateurish.

"The sleeve makes them look like the Motorola Padres," one of my friends said when I sent him the Padres jersey mockup.

Without exception, sponsor patches subtract from the uniform. At best they’re not an eyesore and still a reminder of the ever-accelerating creep of advertisement and profiteering into every aspect of our lives. And it’s the owners who will keep the profit,  by the way.

While I’m relieved that the logos are only allowed on the MLB jersey sleeves and not the fronts, the logos are jarringly huge. At 4-by-4-inches, they are much larger than what is allowed on current NBA jerseys. The NBA logos do not bother me quite as much due to their smaller 2.5-inch by 2.5-inch size. And while I am also relieved that the MLB sponsor decal is on the side of the helmet and is not replacing the team logo, to me, it just makes the helmet look busy and cheap. 

Regarding the Twins specifically, I really enjoy the non-sponsor patches the team currently has on their jerseys. On the Twins’ dark blue road jerseys, the Twins circular logo appears on the jersey’s left sleeve (seen in the feature photo above), and on the Twins’ home white jersey, there is a blue Minnesota overlaid with Minny and Paul shaking hands. Some Twins jerseys, like the throwback baby blue jerseys that the Twins wore in 2021, have a patch on both sleeves. But these patches serve as decoration, a pop of color, and in the case of the Minny and Paul patch, a unique nod to the team’s tradition and history, not advertisements. I am curious if in the future patches will be allowed on both jersey sleeves. It seems that, if there is money to be made, these fun, non-advertising jersey patches will be disincentivized. 

There is also the "slippery slope" argument. Yes, ads are allowed on one sleeve for now. What is stopping MLB from allowing ads on both sleeves, the front, or back of the jerseys next- outside of tradition?

Overall, chalk me up as being one of the fans who will buy replica jerseys without the sponsor patch. Hey, if the brand wants me to advertise, they can pay me, not the other way around. 

What are your thoughts of the jersey patches and helmet decals? Leave a COMMENT below,

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[Muppet]

I love it!...

About as much as I love a good colonoscopy. 

[wsnydes]

The money grubbing that professional sports get into is getting even more ridiculously ridiculous with this.  Pro golfers and their walking billboards are a bit different in that they don't make a salary in the first place, so it's another means for them to make money.  But even there I have my limits.  That isn't the case for team sports.  Jerseys used to be about the team.  It's getting to be just another chunk of real estate to plaster another ad on, just like at the ballparks.  It gets old to constantly get bombarded with it all.

[Bradfoot]

The Microsoft Mariners of Seattle and the U.S. Bank Twins of Minnesota will play a 3 game series at T Mobile Park.  The first pitch is brought to you by Arby's "they have the meat."  Lets take a look at the starting lineup brought to you by.....

Theres the 3rd out brought to you by All State, "you're in good hands."  Now lets pause for 3 minutes of uninterrupted advertising.

[chaderic20]

I guess I'd rather they make money off the players' backs (possibly literally) with an ad patch, than mine by jacking up ticket prices or cable package prices or whatever.

[KnoblauchWasFramed]

29 minutes ago, chaderic20 said:

I guess I'd rather they make money off the players' backs (possibly literally) with an ad patch, than mine by jacking up ticket prices or cable package prices or whatever.

That's awesome that you really believe that these patches will do anything to lower ticket prices or your cable package.  Prime example, if you get a jersey with the Motorola patch on the sleeve, do you get a discount on the jersey?  Do you get a gift card to Motorola?  Nope.  You get the same $200.00 jersey made for $1.50 in China by children but now it comes with a big gaudy tacky eyesore on the sleeve.  These ads will never have any direct effect on reducing the costs put onto the fans.  If this was even an option, why don't we get a coupon or something from Target every time we buy a ticket?

All this does is make Target Field and the Twins look like a softball league playing at a field located next to a trailer park.  It's classless and disgusting to allow these patches.  

[Melissa Berman]

Side note from me: I had no idea that Motorola was still solvent as a company, haha

[roger]

With the Twins no longer available on most streaming services and many cutting ties with cable, no one is going to see these jersey's anyway....so it isn't a big thing to me.

Otherwise, count me among the people who like baseball the way it was played the first 100+ years of its existence.

[Melissa Berman]

4 minutes ago, roger said:

With the Twins no longer available on most streaming services and many cutting ties with cable, no one is going to see these jersey's anyway....so it isn't a big thing to me.

Otherwise, count me among the people who like baseball the way it was played the first 100+ years of its existence.

I'm beyond frustrated for so many people who are unable to get the games. Truly, it shouldn't be that hard. I have DirectTV so I'm lucky, but simply being able to watch the games in your own state should not be that much of an ask

Edited April 20, 2022 by Melissa Berman

[Unwinder]

Advertising on uniforms is unwanted trash, and the money it raises won't go to players, nor will the money translate to savings for the fans. I can put up with it though.

[Melissa Berman]

16 minutes ago, Unwinder said:

Advertising on uniforms is unwanted trash, and the money it raises won't go to players, nor will the money translate to savings for the fans. I can put up with it though.

I guess we'll probably get used to it.. but why do the logos have to be so massive?!

[chaderic20]

1 hour ago, KnoblauchWasFramed said:

That's awesome that you really believe that these patches will do anything to lower ticket prices or your cable package.  Prime example, if you get a jersey with the Motorola patch on the sleeve, do you get a discount on the jersey?  Do you get a gift card to Motorola?  Nope.  You get the same $200.00 jersey made for $1.50 in China by children but now it comes with a big gaudy tacky eyesore on the sleeve.  These ads will never have any direct effect on reducing the costs put onto the fans.  If this was even an option, why don't we get a coupon or something from Target every time we buy a ticket?

All this does is make Target Field and the Twins look like a softball league playing at a field located next to a trailer park.  It's classless and disgusting to allow these patches.  

That's awesome that you really believe I said anything about it lowering ticket/cable prices (or getting coupons??). All I said was if the owners are going to get more money, I'd rather they get it from ad patches than from raising prices on anything I might pay for, with tickets and cable being two examples of things they could raise prices on. And I'll pre-emptively add, don't read here what I'm not saying, because I am not saying this guarantees those prices will never go up.

TLDR; The ad patches don't bother me.

[Unwinder]

24 minutes ago, Melissa Berman said:

I guess we'll probably get used to it.. but why do the logos have to be so massive?!

At least it's not quite as bad as what Minnesota United has to wear.

[Brandon]

So what happens if a player has an issue with the advertising company?  I know I wouldn’t want to represent certain companies with a patch on my uniform.  I mean your uniform is more personal to a player then a bill board.  I wouldn’t want a patch from a company like Disney or any other activist company as I think that can be a distraction.

[Craig Arko]

So if a Twins player has a Target logo on their uniform, will the opposing pitchers be able to take aim?

[Richmond Dude]

1 hour ago, Brandon said:

So what happens if a player has an issue with the advertising company?  I know I wouldn’t want to represent certain companies with a patch on my uniform.  I mean your uniform is more personal to a player then a bill board.  I wouldn’t want a patch from a company like Disney or any other activist company as I think that can be a distraction.

There's a whole episode of Ted Lasso devoted to this.

[Richmond Dude]

Interesting point about tradition and the nature of the buttons on the front of the shirt.  If you look back on the 70s and early 80s, the uniforms absolutely lost a lot of tradition.  Most teams wore pullovers, looked awful.  The White Sox tried out shorts at one point.  There was a real snapback to tradition in the mid-to-late 80s.  So if you don't care for the patches, there is hope.

[The Mad King]

If I'm going to buy a MLB jersey with a patch, they better be paying ME to wear it.

As for the look, fortunately for me I'm pretty much immune to advertising. Save big money...

[ashbury]

6 hours ago, chaderic20 said:

I guess I'd rather they make money off the players' backs (possibly literally) with an ad patch, than mine by jacking up ticket prices or cable package prices or whatever.

Ha ha.  Like it's an either-or proposition.

[bighat]

6 hours ago, Bradfoot said:

The Microsoft Mariners of Seattle and the U.S. Bank Twins of Minnesota will play a 3 game series at T Mobile Park.  The first pitch is brought to you by Arby's "they have the meat."  Lets take a look at the starting lineup brought to you by.....

Theres the 3rd out brought to you by All State, "you're in good hands."  Now lets pause for 3 minutes of uninterrupted advertising.

That's a great point about the 3 minutes of uninterrupted ads.

Soccer players (EPL, La Liga, etc) have worn ads for a long time, but they don't have any stoppages of play. No commercials at all for 90 minutes of non-stop action.

In theory, baseball shouldn't need this. But then again, it's a free money cash grab so it's impossible to expect them to turn it down.

[Richmond Dude]

2 hours ago, bighat said:

That's a great point about the 3 minutes of uninterrupted ads.

Soccer players (EPL, La Liga, etc) have worn ads for a long time, but they don't have any stoppages of play. No commercials at all for 90 minutes of non-stop action.

In theory, baseball shouldn't need this. But then again, it's a free money cash grab so it's impossible to expect them to turn it down.

MLB has been reducing the time between innings as part of the pace of play issue, so maybe there?  Great point about the nature of soccer stoppages.

[PDX Twin]

13 hours ago, bighat said:

That's a great point about the 3 minutes of uninterrupted ads.

Soccer players (EPL, La Liga, etc) have worn ads for a long time, but they don't have any stoppages of play. No commercials at all for 90 minutes of non-stop action.

This is one of the biggest reasons that I abandoned pointy-ball about a decade ago for real football.

[Jerr]

?

Sad........

[Gene Gomes]

The commercial ads stink, but if it has to be done it should at least be entertaining:

Buxton could be sponsored by BluCross/BlueShield 

Sano ‘s sponsor would be Lucky Strikes.