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The Green Bay Packers wear some of the most iconic uniforms in all of sports. They're simple, clean, a palette of football nostalgia that harkens back to the days where you could drink scotch at work, smoke on airplanes and mustaches were a defining feature of one's manliness. If you like these uniforms, you should probably take a picture or buy one of your own. Because in the not too distant future, the Green and Gold is likely going to be the Green and Gold - sponsored by Proctor and Eisenberg, attorneys at law. Yes, ads are almost certainly coming to NFL jerseys.
They've already made their way to practice jerseys but to be fair, Nitschke field has already played Blurred Lines during breaks over the loudspeaker, so any integrity the practice field had before has long since been compromised.
Now, Roger Goodell has gone on record as saying the NFL isn't interested in doing such a thing. But that comes from the same guy who said the NFL is interested in player safety after repeated attempts at implementing an 18-game schedule (which is also probably happening). So take that for whatever it's worth.
But regardless of whatever the Commish says, the biggest sign yet that ads are coming to NFL jerseys is the fact that they're about to come to the NBA. Commissioner Adam Silver has already said that ads on jerseys are, "inevitable" and the first domino may have just fell with the revealing of Charlotte's new jerseys.
Notice something different? No, Alonzo Mourning is retired. What I'm talking about is the relocation of the NBA logo. Whereas every other team features the Jerry West silhouette on the front shoulder, these now have it on the back. The league has called it a "stylistic move" but let's call it for what it really is - real estate.
All that white space is just begging for a Ray's Barbecue Shack logo. And once the NBA follows through with putting ads on their jerseys, it stands to reason that other major sports will follow.
So how much revenue would the Buffalo/Citgo Bills generate from ad sales on jerseys? That's the big question. The NBA has said it could bring in an additional $100 million league-wide dollars. Now, if I wasn't so lazy and was willing to do the math I could probably look at how much overall revenue the NFL brings in, cross-reference it with the NBA and find an approximate number for how much the NFL could generate. But to hell with that, I'm writing this on Friday afternoon.
So let's just say the NFL could bring in more. Maybe way more given the popularity of the sport, TV deal money, and oh, the Super Bowl being the single largest advertising spending day of the year.
And as we learned from the 2011 lockout, the NFL isn't a league that leaves money on the table.