The Philadelphia 76ers will soon add the StubHub logo to the basketball team’s jerseys in a sponsorship deal that is the first ever for a major American sports league team.
In a joint statement, the 76ers said eBay’s (EBAY) StubHub logo would appear on the front left of Sixers’ game jerseys starting in the 2017-2018 season. The patch – which is 2.5 x 2.5 inches in size – will also be included on all jerseys sold at the team’s home games. The deal is exclusive to the 76ers – StubHub won’t sponsor jerseys for any other NBA team.
“This marks another groundbreaking first for the Philadelphia 76ers and StubHub,” 76ers CEO Scott O’Neil said in a statement. “Our brands are now inextricably linked as we create lifelong memories for our fans in Philadelphia and around the world.”
The size of the logo is relatively small upon first glance and would be hard to see on the court or even from the television, though O’Neil tells Fortune that close-ups players and foul shots will be ideal to highlight the StubHub logo.
Will fans be okay with this form of corporate sponsorship? O’Neil points out that jerseys already are branded, with the Adidas name today and down the road, with Nike.
“A test market of three – my three daughters – they want to be in the jerseys the players are wearing,” O’Neil said. “You want to be authentic. And that’s what this new jersey will become,” adding that’s why the team will sell exact replicates with the corporate brand.
For StubHub, President Scott Cutler said the pact was perfectly timed as his company aims to evolve the brand, especially with a new logo that debuted earlier this month.
“Being tightly associated with the experience – the dunk or the three-pointer that wins the game. That part of the emotional experience from the fan perspective is a great place for our brand to be and live,” Cutler said.
This is the first deal of its type, but it definitely won’t be the last. The move comes almost exactly a month after the NBA Board of Governors approved jersey sponsorships as part of a pilot program that will begin in the 2017-2018 season.
The jersey sponsorship program is also timed to coincide with the transition of the NBA’s apparel team, which is changing hands from German-based Adidas to rival Nike (NKE). Nike reportedly paid $1 billion for the contract, which includes allowing the sports brand to become the first apparel partner to have its logo appear on all on-court uniform designs.
Major American sports league executives have recently mulled the possibility of adding corporate logos to their jerseys, since it’s a way for leagues and individual teams to generate more money because of the exposure their games can bring to the brands. For example, when the NHL and Adidas announced a new jersey sponsorship pact last year, executives were repeatedly asked if there were plans to add ads.
As Fortune previously reported, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said it wasn’t something the NHL was considering, saying it would take “a lot, a lot, a lot of money to do.” But he admitted that even with the new Adidas deal in place, the league reserves the right to put ads on jerseys if it wishes.
