Report: Uniform ads could generate millions

From TV deals to concession prices to stadium promotions, baseball teams are in the business of making money. Over the past few years, with the onset of variable ticket pricing and all-inclusive stadium packages, clubs have boosted their bottom lines, and the game is booming. But a new report from Horizon Media says that teams could be doing more. Clubs could generate millions of dollars by doing what many consider to be the unthinkable: selling advertising space on team uniforms.

In essence, such a proposal would represent the NASCAR-ization of professional team sports. While logos are plastered over cars and tennis players are rewarded to wear certain labels on the court, baseball has resisted logo creep. Even New Era, the long-time cap provider, hasn’t been able to secure a place on its hats for a logo. But Horizon Media says this is a major missed opportunity, and the Yanks — the top team in the game in top media market in the country — could generate up to $13 million in revenue by selling uniform space.

The company spoke more about its methodology in a press release:

The report aggregates key jersey exposure attributes including; total duration, logo isolation status, logo size and the cost of a 30-second unit in each market. In addition, the report considered the number of detections (how many times a brand/sponsor can be viewed per game), measured duration (how long the brand/sponsor is visible at each detection) and assigned an attribute score (a relative measurement of performance based on the duration, size, isolation and source type) for each sport. This information then produced a media equivalency value – a dollar figure representing the advertising value of each team’s jersey.

According to the study, the Yanks’ TV exposure and ad rates lead to an opportunity to realize up to $13.8 million if advertisements were prominently displayed on uniforms during tv broadcasts. The findings, Horizon Media stressed, are somewhat preliminary, but the dollar figures are enticing. “Roughly two-thirds of all professional sports franchises were evaluated in this study to determine how much revenue could be generated if the leagues and team owners decided to sell the real estate on the front of their jerseys,” Michael A. Neuman, Horizon’s managing partner, said. “We think the findings more than convey the need for stakeholders to take this concept seriously.”

Of course, any proposal that calls for sullying uniforms would quickly be met by gasps from the game’s traditionalist gatekeepers. Perhaps, advertisements, already so prevalent in game broadcast, should stay clear of uniforms. Furthermore, if such an idea were to come to fruition, baseball would like consider these dollars to be, at least in part, a contribution to the revenue sharing pot because media market disparities would give a significant edge to the top teams. (The Marlins, for instance, would draw in just $1.3 million if their ad-filled uniforms had the same on-air exposure time as the Yanks.)

Ultimately, though, this idea is but a thought experiment. No sport has shown a willingness to head down this path, and such a move would indeed sully the purity of the game’s visual aspects. For the money, though, it might almost be worth it.