The NBA landed a record $1.66 billion in Sponsorship Revenue during the 2022-23 season, 1.3% more than the previous year, according to IEG, the leading authority on sports sponsorships.

The league posted the record amount despite the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors severing ties with the cryptocurrency company FTX, per Forbes. FTX, once one of the Largest Cryptocurrency Exchanges in the world, collapsed and declared bankruptcy last November.

The $1.66 billion figure includes league, team and arena sponsorship rights fees but excludes media sponsorships from broadcasting and cable television. The growth rate, however, slowed from the 2021-22 season when the league’s sponsorship revenue hit $1.6 billion, 14% higher than the previous year, Forbes reported.

Major new league deals with Sorare, a fantasy sports and NFT trading platform, and Hisense, a consumer electronics and home appliances manufacturer, were among the sponsorships that made up for the $20 million lost in the FTX crash, according to Forbes. Also, jersey patch deals between the Chicago Bulls and Motorola and the San Antonio Spurs and Self Financial, the Heat’s new naming rights deal with Kaseya, an IT and security management firm, and new global sponsorships from Abu Dhabi preseason games factored in.

What is on the Utah Jazz jersey patch?

Last month, the Utah Jazz announced a multiyear jersey patch deal with LiveView Technologies, a security and surveillance technology company based in American Fork. The new contract retired the 5 For The Fight patch the Jazz have worn for the past six seasons — space that was donated by Qualtrics, a company cofounded by Ryan Smith, who now is the owner of the team.

The 5 For The Fight patch was the only noncorporate jersey logo in the league. The program, which encouraged fans to donate $5 for cancer research, raised more than $50 million, according to the Jazz.

Sponsorships on jerseys are fairly new in North American sports, though internationally corporate logos have appeared on uniforms for some time. The upcoming NBA season will mark the seventh year the league has allowed jersey patches.

IEG reported that the 2022-23 season was the first that the NBA didn’t increase its total number of league partners since the 2018-19 season, per Forbes. The most active companies sponsoring individual NBA teams (nonleague sponsors) were Socios, Toyota, Verizon and Coca-Cola, each of which had at least 20 deals. 

NFL brings in most sponsorship dollars

While the NBA had a record year for sponsorship revenue, it still lags behind the NFL, which reported $1.88 billion in 2022, according to IEG.

The NFL did not allow deals with crypto exchanges FTX, Coinbase and Crypto.com, and only approved blockchain companies like Socios, which signed 13 NFL teams to deals for 2022, Sports Business Journal reported.

FTX crashed last November and saw about $6 billion in requested withdrawals over a three-day period. Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, backed out of its plans to acquire FTX, leaving the latter on the brink of collapse, per the San Francisco Chronicle.

Cryptocurrency was the second largest sponsorship category in the NBA, trailing only technology, with banks third, according to IEG. In the NFL, technology leads the way followed by sports betting and beer.