News: BTB: Who Should Be Cowboys' Jersey Sponsor If NFL Allowed Jersey Sponsors?

[NewsBot]

The NFL doesn't (yet) allow sponsors on regular NFL jerseys, but if they did, who'd you want as a sponsor on the Cowboys' jersey?

Since 2009, the NFL has allowed teams to have corporate sponsors' logos displayed on their practice jerseys as a way to generate more revenue. In the eight years since, the Cowboys have had a little AT&T patch on the left shoulders of their practice uniforms every year.

The NFL's permission still has not extended to the official game day jerseys, which is a bit surprising for a league that has repeatedly shown that making money is their number one, number two, and number three priority. As some of the top global jersey contracts show, there is quite a bit of money to be made by renting out some jersey real estate:

Top ten global jersey sponsorships
Team​

Sponsor​

Avg. Annual Value
Manchester United​

GM (Chevrolet)​

$80 million
Chelsea​

Yokohama Rubber​

$57 million
Manchester City​

Etihad​

$57 million
Arsenal​

Emirates​

$43 million
Liverpool​

Standard Chartered​

$43 million
Barcelona​

Qatar Sports Investments and Intel​

$41 million
Real Madrid​

Emirates​

$34 million
Bayern Munich​

Deutsche Telekom​

$34 million
Paris Saint-Germain​

Emirates​

$28 million
Juventus​

Jeep​

$19 million​

​

And those are just the deals for the jersey sponsorships. Two years ago, Manchester United announced a new deal with Adidas as the club's jersey partner. The two sides signed a 10-year, $1.3 billion deal that replaces the Nike swoosh on Manchester's jersey with the three Adidas stripes.

Two months ago, the Philadelphia 76ers became the first big-league U.S. team to announce they would put a corporate logo on their jerseys. The NBA approved a 2.5-inch-square patch advertisement for Stubhub, which is scheduled to debut in the 2017-18 season. ESPN pegs the deal at $5 million per year for three years. Not a bad deal for the NBA's worst team that won just 10 of it 82 games last year.

Combine the 76ers contracts with the money the big soccer teams are raking in every year with their deals, and the NFL owners have got to be wondering how much money they're leaving on the table every year.

Imagine an NFL exec this morning: The Sixers got how much? The SIXERS?? Says here ads on NFL jerseys in 3 years.

— Matt Powell (@NPDMattPowell) May 16, 2016​

The NFL has never had any qualms about tapping into new revenue streams as it seeks to double its revenue to $25 billion by 2027, and nothing is sacred for the league as it pursues that goal.

• Thursday Night games debuted in 2006 and originally consisted of five Thursday and three Saturday games. That format has since been expanded and there is now a Thursday Night game every single week as the NFL attempts to expand its media (and revenue) footprint.
• The league created the International Series in 2007, playing one regular season game in London, ostensibly to expand its footprint abroad. That was upped to two games in 2013, three games beginning in 2014, and four games this year. In 2014, the NFL introduced a new start time for the games, 9:30 am EST, which gave the league a fourth game window on an NFL Sunday, and with it an additional revenue stream. Naturally, all three London games this year will now start at 9:30 am EST. The NFL doesn't really care about capturing a British audience. The NFL cares about creating a consistent television window at 9:30 a.m. ET for Sunday NFL football, and with it more revenue streams.
  
• The NFL has also begun monetizing its offseason events. The NFL Combine in February is now televised, and the NFL Draft has been expanded to a three-day event, including two nights in prime time. And it probably won't be long before free agency is squeezed into some kind of TV-friendly format.

And there are many more revenue streams ready to be milked: An expanded playoff field, more playoff games, a 17-game regular season, perhaps even an additional bye week that would help stretch the season even further.

And with all of that going on, why not create an extra $1 billion in revenue with jersey sponsors?

The Cowboys are already partnering with some corporate Giants like American Airlines, AT&T Inc., Bank of America, Dr Pepper, Ford Motor Co., Miller Brewing Co., Nationwide Insurance, and PepsiCo Inc.

But where would the fun be in having those names on the Cowboys jerseys? If you could handpick a company as the Dallas Cowboys jersey sponsor, who would you pick?

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