Brewers News: Jersey Advertisements Could Be Coming In 2020

As MLB tries to get a plan for a season together and the Brewers can get back on the field, there’s been reports that teams might sell advertisements on jerseys.

If you watch the Milwaukee Bucks and the NBA, you’ll notice small advertisement patches on the team jerseys. If you watch professional soccer, you’ll see advertisements literally everywhere on the jersey. Perhaps if you watch the Milwaukee Brewers and MLB in 2020, you’ll see advertisements on jerseys as well. Although I would expect it to look more like the NBA than MLS.

According to former MLB player Trevor Plouffe, in MLB’s latest proposal to the Players’ Association, there is an inclusion of teams being able to sell commercial advertisements on jerseys in both 2020 and 2021.

It’s important to point out that this proposal has not been accepted by the MLBPA yet and there likely will be a little more haggling. But this does seem like a probable scenario that the players aren’t going to object heavily to.

Why Sell Jersey Advertisements?

If you’ve been following the negotiations/screaming match between MLB and the MLBPA, you’ve noticed that the owners are crying poor and that they don’t have the cash flow to pay players their full pro rata salaries without fans in the stands.

The players are calling the owners’ bluff on all this and it’s led to the standoff we are currently in.

Although the players don’t totally believe that the owners are poor, cash flow for these teams will be a problem with no game-day attendance and sales. The only money coming in will be from TV contracts. One way to address that is to sell advertisement patches on your team uniforms, similar to what has been done in the NBA and other leagues around the world.

Hopefully it’s only a short-term thing, but it would be interesting to see how this plays out.

Who Could Advertise On Brewers jerseys?

Naturally, the question of who would advertise on the Brewers uniforms will be asked. On Bucks jerseys, they have a patch for Harley-Davidson, a great Milwaukee company. For the sake of this discussion, we’re going to say Harley is happy just being on one team’s uniforms and won’t go for two.

One big company that would make sense is MillerCoors. Miller has had the naming rights to Miller Park for the last 20 years, but in 2021, American Family Insurance is going to take over. Having the front of the jersey basically read “Miller Brewers” would be fun and fitting. American Family Insurance also might get in on the action as well, but with their stadium naming rights deal, they might not double down.

To keep with the beer theme, another possibility could be Leinenkugel’s. New Glarus probably wouldn’t since they only sell in the state of Wisconsin, so advertising on a national stage wouldn’t seem to make much sense.

Other possibilities could be Kwik Trip, Northwestern Mutual, and Menards. Odds are, if the Brewers go with anyone, they’ll go with a Milwaukee-based or Wisconsin-based company.

One out of the box possibility would be Selig Auto Sales getting an advertisement patch. Sure they’re a small used car lot in West Allis, but former Brewers owner Bud Selig and his family still own the place and it would basically be a Bud Selig patch on the Brewers jerseys. That would be fun and fitting. I doubt it’ll happen, but it would be fun.

It’s looking like jersey advertisements will be coming to baseball in the near future as the league needs to inject some revenue into their system and fast when baseball starts back up again. Until then, we’re just dreaming of the day baseball will return.

Things have started to look promising on the players and owners coming to a deal for the 2020 season. Hopefully, we can get there soon.