It's been a long time since the Jazz reached an agreement with Qualtrics, a well-known software company, to become the fifth NBA team to reach a jersey advertising deal with a sponsor.

The Jazz's jersey will not feature the company's logo, but will instead be used to promote Qualtrics' charity program, FiveForTheFight. The charity hopes that everyone will donate $5 to help fight cancer. Through this charitable project, Qualtrics hopes to raise $50 million for cancer research.

This makes the Jazz the fifth NBA team after the 76ers, Celtics, Kings and Nets to negotiate a jersey advertising deal.

What the? Is this something wrong? Nuo University is an NBA, but only 5 teams have sold their jersey advertisements? Is this the NBA team's poor advertising sales, or is the price too high to scare away customers? You know, football league jersey advertisements such as the Premier League and La Liga are very popular, and even Chinese companies go to Europe to advertise.

Why is it that in the NBA, only 5 out of 30 teams have signed a jersey advertising agreement?

Below, let's take a look at the ins and outs of NBA jersey advertising.

The lifting of the ban in 2016 was resisted

In fact, since the creation of the NBA in New York on June 7, 1946 (then known as BAA), there has never been a commercial advertisement on the jerseys of NBA teams except for the logo of the jersey sponsor. If in the early years, people's advertising awareness was indifferent, and they did ignore the huge business opportunities that jersey advertising could bring. So with the increasing popularity of the NBA, there are more and more businesses that want to add sponsored ads to their jerseys.

The NBA's response to such a request was non-discriminatory: impossible.

We know that the NBA's team name is inextricably linked to the city in which it is located, and this is the team culture that the NBA has promoted since its inception. The ban on sponsor advertising on jerseys is to make this team culture more pure. It has to be said that in the early decades, this advertising strategy of the NBA received quite good results. As long as you are a basketball fan, you will know the names of NBA teams. Think about the CBA team, can you still remember whether the team in Zhejiang is called Zhejiang Zhongxin, or Zhejiang Wanma, or now Zhejiang Chouzhou Bank?

When Stern was the NBA commissioner, he had a very firm stance on team advertising: "NBA jerseys will never have the mark of advertisers. "If revenue decreases, the NBA would rather consider cutting player wages. This is a very unique American jersey culture, not only the NBA, but also the big four American leagues have always adhered to the tradition of not advertising on jerseys.

It is precisely because this tradition has lasted for more than 70 years that when the current NBA commissioner Xiao Hua decided to allow advertising on jerseys and held meetings with NBA teams, he was met with strong resistance from teams, including the Lakers. However, his arm could not twist his thigh, Xiao Hua's attitude was quite resolute, and most of the team owners hoped to increase the team's income with this, and in the end, the decision was passed on the principle of minority obeying the majority.

In April 2016, the NBA officially adopted a three-year pilot program that would allow teams to place sponsor logos on their jerseys on contracts of no more than three years. The area where the logo is allowed is about a 6 cm square, and the content can be designed by itself.

At this point, the NBA officially bid farewell to the "pure jersey era" with no advertising on jerseys.

It stands to reason that such an area has a very good chance of appearing on TV, and it should be a piece of fat that everyone wants to compete for. Why did only five teams sign a jersey advertising deal in the 10 months from April 2016 to February 2017?

There are many bans on NBA jersey sponsorship advertising

The NBA is well aware that the advertising value of all teams in the league today is different. You can't expect an ad for a Jazz jersey from the remote town of Salt Lake City to sell for the same price as a metropolitan team, the Knicks or the Lakers. Therefore, the NBA's idea is for NBA teams to develop their own jersey ads, and after the advertisers are finalized, 50% of the advertising fees will go to the teams, and the remaining 50% of the advertising fees will be handed over to the NBA for redistribution.

Such a rule certainly smooths out the gap in the status of the teams in the league in a certain sense. But for those big-market teams, they are willing to take a longer period of time to seek a more lucrative sponsorship deal in order to better secure their interests. According to ESPN, the psychological price of the Warriors' jersey advertising sponsorship is $65 million over three years, and the psychological price of the Cavaliers is $50 million over three years. With the Cavaliers winning the championship last season, this psychological price may increase even further.

However, teams like the Cavaliers and Warriors are still a minority after all, and most teams in the NBA do not have such a good market, and the psychological price point is not so high. Why are only 5 advertising sponsors willing to provide millions of advertising sponsorships a year?

This brings us to a ban on advertising for NBA jerseys.

On May 5, 2016, the NBA officially issued a notice to all teams regarding the advertising of jerseys, stating that there are several types of industries that are strictly prohibited from appearing in the sponsorship of NBA jersey advertising. These industries include, but are not limited to, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, media partners, politics, watches, and competitors to designated sponsors of NBA jerseys.

This ban undoubtedly puts a heavy shackle on the road of NBA teams seeking jersey sponsorship. You know, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sports equipment, these are the big names of jersey sponsorship, and without these businesses, it becomes difficult for NBA teams to find jersey sponsorship.

So how much are NBA jersey ads worth? We've said before that the Kings' jersey sponsorship deal is about $15 million over three years, and the 76ers signed the deal for about the same amount as the Kings. It seems that the sponsorship cost of about $5 million a year seems to be the value of the average NBA team jersey advertisement.

Someone here will say, you see, the NBA just can't do it, look at Barcelona, the annual jersey sponsorship cost is 100 million euros. However, this is not the case, and the jersey sponsorship fee is signed with the sports equipment brand, which is a package sponsorship plan, and the high cost is also deserved. In the case of NBA jersey advertising, it is a football chest advertising agreement, which is much lower than the jersey sponsorship fee. Or take Barcelona as an example, the chest advertising contract signed between Barcelona and Qatar Airways is one of the highest chest advertising contracts in football, and Qatar Airways pays Barcelona 35 million euros a year, which is much lower than the jersey sponsorship fee.