Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, was recently asked about the possibility of having small advertisements on team uniforms and answered "It's not something that's actively being considered by the NFL." Citing the limited number of partners that the NFL likes to maintain and a new contract with Nike, Goodell said that the costs would outweigh the benefits for the league. Details were found here: Here
I think that this is an interesting move by the NFL, and one that is worth keeping an eye on. The trend seems to be a growing amount advertising in the sports world, and companies are more willing to shell out big money to leagues as popular as the NFL. The fact that they turned down such an offer is noteworthy. A deal for this ad space would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over a multi-year contract, and other leagues will probably be accepting these deals in the coming years. I can certainly appreciate wanting to keep uniforms looking clean and classy, but it seems that the future of professional sports features deals to advertise on uniforms. Several other sports have already begun with these sponsorships (soccer and NASCAR being major pioneers) and fans seem to be indifferent or even in favor of this sort of branding.
I think that the NFL is missing out on a big pay day because of bad assumptions. Other leagues have shown that there is little or no public backlash when uniforms have small ads, and it certainly isn't an issue that would decrease television ratings. I look forward to seeing how long they hold this stance before common sense prevails.
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