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Why American Sports Teams Are Finally Embracing Sponsor Patches

Richard Janvrin by Richard Janvrin, August 05, 2025

Sponsorship in the USA

For fans of sports like soccer, especially those following international teams, seeing sponsor patches on their jerseys is a common sight. However, in the United States, it’s been resisted. Now, leagues like the NBA and MLB have recently started allowing those.

To teams in the United States, the jersey is almost viewed as “sacred,” so having a jersey sponsorship, to some, takes away from that. However, as time goes on, we could begin to see more of it.

For now, the resistance has a lot to do with tradition, league policies, and fan opinions.

As mentioned, we’re seeing it with the NBA offering small jersey sponsor patches.

So what’s changing? Why have American sports been resistant to sponsor patches? We’ll explore that more below.

Why American Sports Resisted Jersey Sponsorship

Until the 2017-18 NBA season, the 2022-23 NHL season, and the 2023 MLB season, a jersey sponsorship was unheard of in the United States. However, in Europe, this was extremely common. The Premier League started allowing jersey sponsor deals back in the 1980s.

In America, the jerseys were clean and a symbol of the league and sport. It included the player’s name and the team name, and that was it. There were no ads. Shoot, the New York Yankees in the MLB don’t even have player names on their jerseys.

To some, having sponsor patches may take away from the authenticity of the sport.

For a long time, leagues had rules against ads on jerseys.

To this day, the NFL maintains this rule. So, if you Google “who sponsors NFL jerseys,” you’ll find that it’s no one. The NFL is the last league without jersey sponsorship deals.

Ultimately, the holdout centred on tradition and potential fan backlash.

What changed was leagues like the NBA, MLB, and NHL trying it out, seeing upticks in revenue, and experiencing minimal negative fan reaction. So, in all, there wasn’t any downside.

The Slow Rise of Jersey Sponsor Patches in U.S. Sports

The first American sports league to allow jersey patches was the NBA. It was presented in the 2017-18 season as a “pilot launch” with a three-year trial.

The league was an immediate success, with sponsorship revenues eclipsing $1.1 billion, a 30% increase in just one year. Overall, fans didn’t really have much to say about it. The patches were discreet yet visible.

Then, in the NHL, they allowed both helmet and jersey sponsorships. By the 2024-25 season, almost every team had one.

Due to the pandemic, there was an emphasis on finding new revenue streams, and these patches were one of them.

Finally, the MLB. This followed the agreement of a new CBA in 2022. The San Diego Padres were one of the first to agree to a deal with Motorola in April 2022, worth $10 million per season. By the 2023 season, all but seven teams had deals.

Top teams like the Yankees can draw even more money.

So, teams began to notice that this was a legitimate source of revenue, fan backlash wasn’t that serious, and the leagues handled it well, either via a CBA agreement or by slow-rolling it on a trial basis.

NFL: The Final Holdout without Sponsor Patches

The one exception among the top American sports leagues that allow jersey sponsorship deals is the NFL, the largest league in the United States.

So, who has some NFL jersey sponsor deals? No one.

For now, the only branding is just the markings of the jersey, so, for example, the signature Nike “swoosh.”

Why hasn’t the NFL given in? Well, that’s a multi-pronged answer.

The NFL doesn’t have any issues with money. They have massive television deals and streams of revenue. Thus, there’s no emphasis on needing the sponsor patches.

Also, the NFL tends to be a league that lets the other leagues try something and then come in later and do it their own way.

Under the current commissioner, Roger Goodell, there’s no sign that they may ever allow them.

Part of that is the common expression in the NFL, “protecting the shield.” The NFL always wants to present a positive image, and Goodell has expressed that he feels it would take away from the integrity and aesthetic of the jerseys.

That said, there are sponsor patches on practice jerseys, and that’s been in place for a while. As for game day jerseys, though, that’s a hard no despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue they could bring.

Future of Sponsor Patches in American Sports

Given how financially beneficial the patches have been to leagues like the NBA, MLB, and NHL, it’s one of those situations where I don’t see them turning their back on the deals. So, for those leagues, they’re here to stay, and they could even expand more. This could include, perhaps, having sponsorship deals on bats, NBA shorts, and maybe even goalie pads in the NHL.

Other leagues, including NCAA sports, could also add these, especially with the rise of NIL.

As for the NFL, that’s a tougher question. As mentioned, the league is massively profitable, the commissioner doesn’t want it, and the owners aren’t seeming to push for it.

Goodell, 66, is signed through March 2027 and has already received multiple contract extensions since becoming commissioner in 2006. The league has been massively popular and rich since he took over, so chances are he’ll remain in his position until he’s ready to call it quits.

When will that be? No one knows.

However, that’s when I think we can start expecting sponsor patches on NFL jerseys. But then, again, who knows? There aren’t many examples of corporations, whether sports teams or otherwise, that don’t do everything possible to maximize their revenue. The NFL, keeping its jerseys “clean” from advertisements, is one of the last remnants of a bygone era in sports.

That said, the NFL does advertise online sports betting apps with teams being partnered with specific platforms and the league itself having deals with certain outlets.

There are still those who hold more traditional sports values and want to use sports as a way to “escape,” and seeing jersey sponsor patches could break some of that “immersion.”

As for the leagues that have already opened that Pandora’s box, they’re here to stay; there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle, and as I said, it may only expand as time goes on.

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