According to computer vision analysis from GumGum Sports, the jersey patch is the biggest sponsor location in-arena on social media for NBA games after Nike’s apparel sponsorship.
The social media valuation insights for the 2018-19 NBA season found Los Angeles Lakers jersey patch sponsor Wish generated the highest sponsor media value across team owned-and-operated team accounts. The analysis found that Wish’s jersey sponsorship earned $9.3 million, nearly doubling the $4.9 million it generated in the previous season.
Wish swapped places with Goodyear, whose Cleveland Cavaliers jersey patch sponsorship dropped from No. 1 in 2017-2018 to No. 4 this year. GumGum Sports did analyze one non owned-and-operated account — LeBron James’ Instagram — and found that the basketball megastar’s personal posts generated 15 percent more value for Wish than all of the Lakers’ accounts combined.
GumGum Sports also conducted social media valuation for jersey patches in the postseason. The NBA Playoffs produced an additional $29 million in total sponsorship media value, including $10 million for the two teams competing in the Finals (Golden State Warriors/Rakuten at $5.5 million and Raptors/Sun Life Financial at $4.6 million as of May 31). As expected, the four teams in the Conference Finals had the top four social media jersey patch values, with the Portland Trailblazers/Biofreeze totaling $3.3 million and Milwaukee Bucks/Harley Davidson adding $2.8 million.
Said GumGum Sports GM, Brian Kim, “It’s worth noting that due to the variety of factors we use to calculate value – clarity, prominence, visibility, size, placement and share of voice – still images actually generated 86 percent of the overall social media value compared to 14 percent for video.”
GumGum Sports’ analysis found that over the entire NBA season jersey patches received 121,000 total exposures, 42 billion total impressions and 3.2 billion total engagements on social media.
