[IlladelphParticipant]

I was interested to read this week about the NBA deciding to have 2.5" x 2.5" ads on jerseys starting in the 2016-2017 season.  The decision is coming at an interesting time considering the salary cap is going up, and the NBA is making more money than ever.

My first reaction was not that it is a bad idea.  I don’t care about a 2.5" x 2.5" logo on a player’s uniform.  My only gripe with it is if I were to buy a player’s uniform and then have a company’s logo on it.  I don’t like being a walking billboard advertisement for a company, so that would bother me.  But I don’t wear sports jerseys so that’s not an issue for me.

My first reaction was, "how does this work"?  How much is a logo like that worth?  Who sells the advertisement, the team or the TV network?  How often is the logo changed since networks/teams could sell the logo space for every TV game if they cohose to do so.  It’s easy to change a small logo.  How is the revenue split between the teams, and players?  There’s a SBD article that explains some of it, but the details on the deal are not out yet.

What I really wonder about the deal is how this will affect player salary negotiations with big star FAs.  Depending on the revenue split between teams, and networks, this could give teams more latitude to go after a big name FA and pay that player even more than what they could have under the new CBA.  Be assured that player agents are working 24/7 right now to figure out the details of the revenue split.  And then, will this new money that teams get go straight to the big names on their teams, or will this bump up all players’ salaries?  I think that we are going to see some eye-popping numbers being thrown around for pay for the top players in the NBA.

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