The NBA’s inevitable march toward having advertising on its jerseys has continued with a subtle change to their style this season.
By moving the league’s iconic silhouette logo from the left chest area to the back above the player’s name, the NBA has now opened up a prime piece of real estate on the front of its jerseys to eventually place advertising on them.
While the idea of having ads on jerseys is against the sensibilities of most American sports fans, they are commonplace in Europe, and since taking over for David Stern back in February, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has made it clear it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be seen on NBA jerseys.
“I think it’s inevitable,” Silver said in March at the 2014 IMG World Congress of Sports, according to Ad Age.
“It just creates that much more of an opportunity for our marketing partners to get that much closer to our fans and to our players. It gives us an opportunity just to have deeper integration when it comes to those forms of sponsorship … increasingly, as we see Champions League and English Premier League televised in the U.S., I think it’s going to become more acceptable and more commonplace for our fans as well.”
In conjunction with moving the league’s logo to the back of the jerseys, the NBA is also introducing a “championship tag” to its jerseys for the first time this season. For teams that have won a single NBA championship, their jerseys will have a gold tag with a Larry O’Brien Trophy displayed on it on the back of the neck of the jerseys. For teams with multiple NBA championships, theirs will have a Larry O’Brien Trophy with the number of titles written next to it – “X2” for the Knicks, “X5” for the Spurs and “X17” for the Celtics, for example.
This will be the third straight season that there will be a unique Christmas Day jersey for all 30 teams. The twist this season is one of the team’s logos will be displayed on the front of the jerseys — as opposed to either the team’s nickname or city — and then will have the player’s first name on the back, as opposed to his last name. It will also be under the number as opposed to its usual spot above it.
All 30 teams will have a Christmas Day jersey whether or not they play on the holiday. The league’s full schedule should be announced early next month.
The Knicks will also once again wear their all-orange alternate jerseys this season, in which they went 0-6 last year.
A league source confirmed the Knicks have had discussions with free-agent swingman Dahntay Jones about bringing him in for a workout.
Jones, 33, spent last season out of the NBA after playing the previous 10 seasons in the league for Memphis, Sacramento, Denver — where he was teammates with Carmelo Anthony when the Nuggets reached the Western Conference Finals in 2009 — Indiana, Dallas and Atlanta.
Whether or not they bring Jones, a solid defender and strong locker-room presence, to training camp, the Knicks are going to have to make some moves to get down to the 15-man maximum by the start of next season. After using all of their mini mid-level exception to sign big man Jason Smith to a one-year deal, the Knicks have 13 players under contract for either full or partially guaranteed deals.
That doesn’t include the non-guaranteed deals of Shannon Brown, whose contract will become guaranteed if he’s on the roster on Aug. 1, and Jeremy Tyler, whose contract will become partially guaranteed if he’s on the roster on Sept. 15. It also doesn’t include the expected signing of Cleanthony Early, the first of their three second-round picks in last month’s draft.
Michael Jenkins has accepted an invitation to training camp with the Nets, according to his agent, Daniel Moldovan.
Jenkins, 27, impressed during the Nets’ week-long stint in Orlando for Summer League earlier this month, averaging 6.8 points in just over 15 minutes per game. He played at Winthrop before heading overseas, where he spent last season averaging 10.0 points and shooting 37.8 percent from 3-point range for Cantu in Italy.