Corporate Logos: The Next Big Thing

I can't believe that I'm actually writing about the WNBA. But it's also the first time they've ever been newsworthy.

The WNBA's Phoenix Mercury have decided to replace their team name on their jersey in favor of the team's official sponsor, LifeLock. LifeLock paid $1 million for the right to turn some of basketball's least watched players into moving billboards for identity theft protection. WNBA President Donna Orender called this "an innovation." Because it's not like we haven't seen rampant advertising in America before.

Just like that, some are predicting this to be the next trend for American pro sports. I think that's getting a little ahead of ourselves. The fact of the matter is, more people would watch the D-League over the WNBA if it had a TV deal. The NHL has a greater national profile than the WNBA and the NHL are airing their playoffs on Versus. Everyone knows that the WNBA is in financial trouble and has been since it came out, and will probably continue to be until women start dunking on the regular.

So this "innovative" move really isn't that big of a shocker. It is very likely to catch on in a league where the team that won it's first four titles just folded. And it's only innovative in the sense that it's the first televised professional basketball league in America to do this. Major League Soccer has been doing this since it's inception just to get off the ground, and all European sports do this.

So why wouldn't it catch on here? We already have ads in our video games and sell naming rights to our stadiums, so why wouldn't we just go all the way and have Nike and L23 logos all over our Cleveland Cavaliers jerseys?

First thing I'd say is that no one would buy a basketball jersey that said "Duracell" across the front instead of "Knicks." But it wasn't that long ago when everyone was buying those NASCAR jackets that had corporate logos all over them. Nelly has made a career on rapping about his shoes. And I don't know how well it caught on, but down here in the South, there was/is a trend where people are covering their cars with corporate logos, without any prompting from the companies, presumably because they get off on humiliating their race.

So it would appear that our sports leagues are already prepared for such a transition. Despite being in relatively good financial shape, our leagues will do anything to make a dollar, even making us sit through an Ashlee Simpson halftime show, in a desperate attempt to draw in a more varied audience. Claiming that their teams need a new stadium to fight off competition, when there's only one football team in the state. Really, there is nothing that is beneath a sports team. Logic would dictate that it's a matter of time before "Baby Ruth" replaces "Yankees" on baseball jerseys.

For God's sake, one baseball team let Sony promote "Spider-Man" by putting the logo on its' bases. They have no shame. The only thing stopping this from taking the sports world by storm is that, unlike the WNBA or MLS teams, the team names for NFL, NBA, and MLB teams actually have value.

Corporate ownership, despite the fact that they would eat babies live on the air, if it was profitable for them, value image above all else. And they know that something in Boston is going to burn if they remove the name "Celtics" from their jerseys in favor of the "Sam Adams" logo. I know they bent over and took it when they had to buy tickets to the FleetCenter (now TD Banknorth Garden), but the Celtics have never changed their jerseys. Never.

Conventional numbers can't calculate the PR hit that a team like the White Sox would take for doing something like this. You'd need Pythagoras to come back before you could figure it out.

There's no way that the Knicks or the Bulls or the Browns or the Cowboys would go for it. The leagues didn't start this way, unlike in Europe, where they always had Porsche or Heineken plastered all over them. There isn't a deeply engrained history of outside sponsorship for American teams. Almost all of them were started by rich businessmen and private investors. There was no need to ask GM to sponsor the NBA or NFL or MLB, because the owners made their fortunes by investing in GM to begin with. Or in meatpacking plants. Candy sales. Whatever.

As a result, our sports franchises are brands unto themselves. Realistically, they could sponsor someone else's products. The American pro sports logo just as recognizable, if not more, than any product that's looking to replace it. How many cricket teams do you know that could do that?

Not only that, they'd have to be afraid to lose jersey sales. That's a huge revenue stream for teams. Every year, people shell out up to $300 for authentic jerseys like the ones the players wear, but how quickly are you going to rush out to buy a Kobe jersey that says "Staples"across the front? The best that they can hope for is a small logo off to the side, but making some corporate logo the centerpiece? Not going to happen.

Or at least it shouldn't. If nothing else, it just looks cheap. Just because it's good for Europe doesn't mean it's good for us. Just look at the Reliant Robin.