Ready For Ads on Your Favorite NBA Team's Jersey?

The current downturn in the economy is supposedly affecting many NBA teams.  You wouldn't think it seeing the way money is being thrown at mediocre free agents during this offseason, but that's the stance many franchises are now taking.

In an effort to raise some "much needed cash," NBA teams are seriously considering the unthinkable - placing advertising on team jerseys.

Sound crazy?  Just look at the photo accompanying this article. 

That's a WNBA player for the Phoenix Mercury.  But can you spot the Mercury's name anywhere?  No, instead, we're treated to an ad for "Lifelock" across the front of her jersey.

Both the Phoenix Mercury and the Los Angeles Sparks (hyping Farmer's Insurance) sold ad space on their playing uniforms this season.

If the WNBA was willing to do this, what are the chances the NBA would follow suit?

The WNBA is very closely associated with the NBA.  In fact, several WNBA teams are also owned by NBA owners.  If the WNBA can get away with ads on their jerseys without any anger from its fan base, then the thought is surely to seep in the minds of the NBA's owners.

Of course throughout the rest of the world advertising on jerseys is not unusual.  Soccer teams, even the major teams like Manchester United, have ads prominently displayed on their uniforms.  Fans still purchase and wear them without thinking of themselves as walking billboards.

NASCAR, which thrives on such sponsorship, not only allows but nearly mandates its drivers be covered head-to-toe in corporate advertisements.  Once again, fans will still purchase items associated with their favorite drivers even if the DuPont, Home Depot, or M&Ms logo outweighs the driver's name.

Now the NBA is jumping on the bandwagon.

Beginning in the 2009-10 season, the NBA will allow every team to sell ad space on their practice jerseys.  A spokesman for the NBA has stated that fans "will come to accept it."

Will you?

Of course, you really have no say in the matter.  Teams are already making bank selling the rights to spaces on their practice jerseys.  This is just another link in an ever growing chain.

Arenas have been overtaken with corporate names.  Advertising clutters the interior of every major stadium, and it has even seeped onto some NBA courts. 

But will fans really accept ads on jerseys?  Will they shell out a couple hundred dollars for an "authentic" jersey if, in being truly authentic, a company's ad is stitched across the front? 

It's a question we shall all be facing in the very near future.