The following is brought to you by the "It's April, and we're tired of writing about satellite camps" department.
Later this week the NBA is set to approve advertisements on uniforms for the 2017-18 season. The ads would be a 2.5 inch-by-2.5 inch patch on the left shoulder, and the idea is so ingrained in the league's thinking that it was included in the latest round of television negotiations. The concept is also said to be a pet project of commissioner Adam Silver who, at age 53, has another 15-to-20 years in his chair. Bottom line: uniform ads are happening, sooner rather than later.
And it sucks.
I fully realize I'm the heart-broken 14-year-old who finally learned Santa wasn't real when he saw the jolly old elf peel off his beard and chug a Four Loko while peeling out of the mall parking lot, and that's fine. Isn't that the point of sports, in its own weird way, to keep that part of you alive while the rest of you is crushed by bills and obligations and the relentless tick-tock of real life?
The NBA already sells ads on the court, the baseline, the banners just off the court, in multiple spots throughout the arena and on the arena itself. Games are also spliced at multiple points in each quarter for no other reason than to sell advertisements. (And here's the difference between the NBA and European soccer, where clubs have sold ad space on jerseys for years but do so in lieu of TV timeouts.)
The most maddening aspect of this story? Teams already provided advertising on jerseys... to themselves. Teams that played in arenas sponsored by American Airlines, on courts adorned with FanDuel ads, still reserved the actual uniform to sell, you know, the New York Knicks -- the entire reason you've subjected yourself to 15 straight years of bad basketball in the first place. But now they'll be the Knicks, brought to you by Microsoft or Subway or Sprite. At what point does it stop? Shouldn't a spot on Steph Curry's jersey command a higher dollar amount than Festus Ezili's? And if I can pay extra to get my brand's logo on Steph's jersey, how much extra will it take to secure title sponsorship for an entire team? "That's a 13-0 run for the Golden State Warriors presented by American Express!"
When an entity puts everything in its grasp for sale, eventually it becomes no longer a basketball team, but a vessel for which other brands to rent the team's captive market for its own purposes. Sell your arm, your leg, your knee and your fingers, and eventually you've sold your entire body and the entire concept of self. There's a reason Ford doesn't sell the hood of its vehicles to Dr. Pepper, isn't there? Apple doesn't plaster the back of its iPhones with Big Macs for a reason. Consumers buy F-150s and iPhones because they want Ford and Apple's branding, not anyone else's.
This isn't the end of jersey advertising, but the beginning. The WNBA already sells jersey space, and the NFL has solicited ad space on its practice jerseys for years. But the NBA will be the first to bring it to the field of play (the league trial-ballooned the idea for this year's All-Star Game), beginning a normalization process that will spread to other sports eventually, perhaps even college football.
And if the thought of a Snickers logo appearing on an Alabama jersey sounds ludicrously heinous to you, just wait. So does the idea of Bill Russell and Jerry West and Oscar Robertson's NBA selling its jersey space to a fast food company for a few extra million shekels a year.
"It's manifest destiny," Silver told ESPN last month. "So let's begin by saying this isn't going to affect the competition. What we're talking about is a patch on the jersey. And one of the reasons we want to do it is that it creates an additional investment in those companies in the league ... the amplification we get from those sponsors, those marketing partners of the league, who want to attach to our teams and our players.
"But once they put their name on the jerseys, they'll then use their media to promote the NBA extensively. That's probably the greatest reason for us to do it."
Sports are a business, and businesses exist to separate you from your money. But the beauty of sports is -- or, was -- the song and dance between the business, the consumer and the consumer's wallet. Teams are civic entities, shared between management and consumer in a way that's different than Chick-fil-A regulars feel about the waffle fries.
But Silver and the rest of the NBA's leadership are determined to tear down that wall, and I guess I can't do anything about it except stomp my feet and hold my nose.
So, sure, I'll be the teary-eyed 14-year-old asking Mom why Santa isn't real. Better him, though, than to be the guy in the suit convincing Santa he could make a few extra bucks an hour if he'd just tie-dye his beard and stitch a Skittles logo on his cap.