NBA jerseys to feature ads starting in 2017

As expected, the NBA Board of Governors has approved a proposal to place advertisements on jerseys for the 2017-18 season.

That season will kick off a three-year trial period for the ads.

"Jersey sponsorships provide deeper engagement with partners looking to build a unique association with out teams and the additional investment will help grow the game in exciting new ways," commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Friday. "We're always thinking about innovative ways the NBA can remain competitive in a global marketplace, and we are excited to see the results of this three-year trial."

The ads will take the form of approximately 2.5-inch-by-2.5-inch patches on the jerseys' left shoulder, similar to the Kia logo that appeared on the All-Star Game jerseys this year. On the opposite shoulder will be a logo for Nike, which will take over for Adidas as the league's official uniform supplier in 2017-18.

Silver said in December that the approval process had been held up over concerns from small-market teams that revenue from jersey ads would tilt the scales even further toward teams in large markets - who would presumably be able to attract more favorable sponsorship deals.

The proposal was amended to help assuage those fears, with a provision requiring teams to put half their jersey-ad profits into a revenue-sharing pool to be split equally among all 30 teams, ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Darren Rovell reported earlier this week.

Silver suggested in the past that selling corporate logo space on jerseys would net the league up to $100 million per year in additional revenue, but some industry insiders believe that figure could climb as high as $150 million, USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt reports.

That estimate would mostly be in line with the Toronto Raptors' tentative asking price of $4 million-$5 million for the ad space, though one Toronto advertiser told TSN's Rick Westhead the team's owners were unlikely to get even half that amount.

The league announced that sponsored patches won't appear on retail versions of player jerseys, but teams will have the option to include them on the jerseys they sell at their own retail outlets.