It was announced yesterday that the Golden State Warriors have become the latest team to agree to a deal to wear an advertising patch on their jerseys. They struck the largest NBA patch advertising contract with Rakuten for a massive amount of money, which is way more than any other team has agreed to.

Terms of the deal

ESPN's Darren Rovell reported that sources told him that the deal struck with Rakuten was for $20 million a year. This is about double the amount that the Cleveland Cavaliers are getting per year from their patch deal with Goodyear.

The deal spans three-years, as mandated by the NBA's three year trial period with these patches, which will start appearing on jerseys in the 2018-19 season.

The two-and-a-half by two-and-a-half inch logo will appear in the left-hand corner of the jerseys.,

There will be three different variations of the logo depending on which jersey the team is wearing. The team will have Rakuten's genuine logo with red and black on their white home jerseys. Their blue road jerseys will have a white version of the logo, while their slate jerseys will sport a gold version.

More than just a patch

Warriors chief marketing officer Chip Bowers said in regards to the deal that, “We actually had multiple finalists.” He also added that “This was not the biggest deal that we were offered.”

Bowers said that the team decided to go with Rakuten due to them being a worldwide brand, saying that “we felt in order to grow our global vision, we had to be aligned with a global brand.”

Rakuten's deal with the Warriors will extend beyond the patch on the actual game-worn jersey.

Authentic and replica jerseys and jersey T-shirts with the logo will be sold at Oracle Arena. The Warriors will also be renaming their practice facility to the Rakuten Performance Center. Lastly, the company will become the official e-commerce, video-on-demand, and affiliate marketing partner of the Golden State Warriors.

What is Rakuten?

Rakuten is a Japanese tech company that also owns Ebates, Viper, and Kobo. These three will also become the Warriors official shopping e-reward partner, instant messaging and calling app, and e-reader partner respectively.

This is also not the first major jersey deal they have made, as back in July they agreed to paid $262 million over four-year to start appearing on FC Barcelona's jerseys. In 2015, Rakuten located its North American headquarters in San Francisco, as the $7 billion company tries to grow its name recognition outside of Japan.
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