Minnesota Timberwolves Announce Fitbit as Jersey Sponsor for 2017-18 Season

The Minnesota Timberwolves announced Tuesday that players will begin wearing Fitbit patches on their jerseys during the 2017-18 season.            

The T'Wolves and Fitbit reached a three-year deal that will also see Fitbit become the official wearable and official sleep tracker of the organization.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called jersey ads "inevitable" in 2014 and discussed their benefits, per Michael McCarthy of 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."

The Timberwolves will join a growing list of teams set to wear ads on their jerseys in 2017-18 and beyond.

According to ESPN.com's Paul Lukas, among the teams that have already announced partnerships are the Philadelphia 76ers with StubHub, the Sacramento Kings with Blue Diamond Almonds, the Boston Celtics with General Electric, the Brooklyn Nets with Infor and the Utah Jazz with Qualtrics.