Why Nike Paid $1,000,000,000 For This

MLB jerseys used to look like this they

were supposed to look like this but now

they look like this but these Nike

jerseys Wen in every single M Mo game

aren't even made by Nike that is done by

a completely different company

traditionally if you wanted uniforms for

your team you would need to find a

company that makes uniforms pay that

company and in exchange they will give

you uniforms not in this case Nike is in

charge of providing MLB uniforms but MLB

pays nothing and actually makes Nike pay

them $1 billion and somehow this

exchange still ends up making Nike

millions they paid another billion to

make every single NFL jersey players

immediately complained they didn't fit

and made them look fat they paid another

billion to make every single NBA jersey

and immediately they started ripping and

falling apart on the court and now MLB

is having similar issues this spring

Nike just made League wide changes and

introduced new uniforms that many fans

media members and players are calling

the worst uniforms of all time everyone

seems to want to blame Nike and Fanatics

for making these terrible uniforms but

in reality it's actually Jeremy Lynn's

fault yes because 12 years ago Lin

sanity created a chain reaction and

because of it this spring Niki moved the

MLB logo lower changed the base color

from white to off-white made the letters

of players names noticeably smaller and

even some jerseys seem to have switched

from stitched logos to ironed on logos

when they introduced these jerseys one

player immediately said they felt like

they were from TJ Maxx another player

called them papery the biggest

complaints about them were the pants

because they can no longer be tailored

many players hated the fit and entire

teams just started wearing their pants

from previous Seasons during games more

issues arose on picture day when images

of players wearing these pants showed

that the pants were seethrough and

multiple awkward pictures of players

junk were being shown and spread online

adding more fuel to the fire as people

online joked about M Mo games having to

be broadcasted like this because the

pants were see-through Fanatics the

company that manufactures the jerseys

downplayed the changes saying the pants

material hadn't changed and the

see-through effect is something that

always happens on picture day however

when one fan tagged Fanatics in a

picture of a jersey they responded by

saying quote looks like we dropped the

ball on this one send me a DM so I can

learn more about it turns out this

jersey that fanatic's Twitter

acknowledged was a mistake was an actual

game issued uniform given to Michael

Chavez to wear an a game shortly after

Fanatics deleted the Tweet Fanatics is

the company who manufactures the Nike

jerseys worn in every MLB game Nike

designs the jerseys tells them what what

to make what materials to use and

Fanatics uses their factories to produce

them and send them to teams they have

exclusive deals to distribute jerseys

for almost every major sports league in

the world they are a $31 billion company

are praised in the business world for

changing the sports merchandise game and

their CEO recently won the Athletics

Sports person of the year award but many

consumers hate them they are constantly

being blamed for making replica Jersey

worse and worse there are entire social

media accounts calling them out for

their poor jerseys when news broke they

would be making the new NHL uniforms

hockey fans revolted leading to backlash

everywhere and now they're being blamed

for making MLB uniforms look like

they're from TJ Maxx but the reason

Fanatics is in this position may come

down to one moment in February 2012

Jeremy Lynn had already been cut by two

teams in this season alone his current

team was considered in cutting him

before they randomly put him into a game

and he scored 25 points had five

rebounds and seven assists in only 36

minutes at the time Adidas made NBA

uniforms Reebok made NFL uniforms and

Majestic made MLB jerseys each company

had exclusive deals with each league

back then these companies like Adidas

would pay to manufacture jerseys for the

league because it also gave them the

right to make replica jerseys so every

time a fan bought a jersey Adidas would

get a cut these three companies were

spending a fortune for the rights to

manufacture these uniforms until

something changed in 2012 Nike entered

the market paying $1.1 billion for the

rights to make NFL jerseys for Five

Seasons that is

$220 million a year nearly 10 times more

than Reebok had paid for the same rights

just a year earlier even when accounting

for inflation Nike outbid Reebok by over

$250 million but they didn't want to

stop at football they wanted baseball

and basketball too so for a company like

Adidas to compete with this insane

amount of money Nike was willing to

spend they needed to sell a lot more

jerseys that year Jeremy Lynn gave them

that opportunity he followed his first

game with another 28 points against the

Jazz a few days later he lined up

against John Wall and dominated putting

up another 23 points the entire world

all of a sudden knew and was heavily

invested in Jeremy Lynn and with his

next game against Kobe Bryant and the

Lakers at Madison Square Garden it was a

perfect storm he was the biggest name in

American Sports and people across the

world rushed to get his jersey

unfortunately for them there were none

just a week before Lynn was a nobody so

Adidas had no reason to make a Jeremy

Lynn Jersey Lynn torched Kobe Bryant

putting up 38 points as the entire MSG

crowd cheered him on like he was their

savior this was the height of Lin sanity

yet Jeremy Lyn jerseys didn't even exist

yet the Knicks quickly put t-shirts on

their website but warned consumers they

wouldn't be delivered for weeks

desperate to take advantage of the

demand Modell's pulled Jeremy Lyn

jerseys off the assembly line early but

were only available in two of the 150

locations the Knicks themselves couldn't

even get jery ly jerseys finally making

an announcement that they'd be available

at the team store but admitting they

only had 200 of them available Adidas

scrambled to make as much Jeremy ly

merch as possible and made a ton of it

however Lin sanity ended almost as

quickly as it started he finished the

season injured and that offseason then

Nicks decided to let Lynn leave in free

agency and now the insane amount of

Jeremy Lyn Nicks merch Adidas rushed to

make was worthless according to Modell

following his departure they sold about

40,000 Jeremy Lyn jerseys and t-shirts

for as low as $1 each resulting in a

massive loss and profit this likely cost

the NBA millions of dollars the deal

with MBA itself may have cost Adidas

millions of dollars by the end of under

the contract their share of basketball

Footwear in America was only 3% thinking

the agreement wasn't worth it Adidas

didn't even make an offer once the

contract was up yet for some reason Nike

agreed to essentially the exact same

agreement for $1 billion paying $125

million a year which was nearly three

times more money than Adidas paid for

the exact same deal and to justify this

they had to sell a lot more jerseys and

to do this they started making a sh ton

of new jerseys in Seven Seasons with the

NBA Nike has made

438 different jerseys that is over 150

more jerseys than Adidas made in the

previous Seven Seasons before Nike took

over by pumping out New Jersey after New

Jersey Nike has helped NBA increase

their jersey sales by double digit

percentage points in five of their first

six seasons Nike did the same thing with

NFL in the 9 years prior to the Nike

deal there were 126 NFL jerseys in the 9

years since there's been

180 within a few years Nike was selling

up to four times as many jerseys as

Reebok was a decade before Nike bragged

about building a supply chain that could

create a new jersey and have it ready

for consumers in weeks but as we saw

with Lance sanity even this is too too

slow and that's where Fanatics comes in

originally in e-commerce business

Fanatics sold sports merchandise online

they were so good at this when mob

signed an exclusive deal to sell all

online M Mo apparel through Fanatics

their sales went up

67% in one year soon Fanatics had deals

with NBA NFL MLS Formula 1 NASCAR and

pretty much everyone the Fanatics

production line has become so fast and

efficient if a player gets traded to

tomorrow Fanatics can make their Jersey

on their new team and have it delivered

to you in only three business days

Jersey makers used to only offer jerseys

of the team's best players because the

cost of making them only Justified

selling the best sellers now Fanatics

can make a jersey for anyone whether

they're on the team or not and get it to

you in 3 days and this has exploded

jersey sales Fanatics has been such an

asset for major sports leagues MLB even

went as far as to allow them to make

their game worn uniforms Nike designs

the jerseys gives instructions on how to

make them sends them the materials and

Fanatics does the rest and Nike still

gets their patented swoosh on every

single Jersey which in reality may be

the only thing they care about Nike

outbid every other company by hundreds

of millions of dollars just to force

leagues to put this logo on each and

every Jersey the NBA refused to put the

Adidas logo on game War jerseys but

couldn't deny Nike because they paid

them three times more MLB hid the

Majestic logo on the sleeve and teams

like the Yankees were exempt from

putting them on the jerseys at all to

protect the purity of the brand but when

Nike offered the league twice as much

money as Majestic paid they had no

choice but to slap a Nike logo right on

the front these jerseys are essentially

advertisements which earn Nike billions

of dollars in exposure last year Super

Bowl generated

$285 Million worth of exposure for

Brands Nike alone accounted for 60% of

this during a typical NFL game the Nike

logo is visible on screen for around

half the game that is over 4,000 seconds

that same game companies paid $7 million

for a 30 second ad that is around

$233,000 per second meaning if they

wanted as much airtime as Nike got they

would have to pay

$964 million for their Jersey deal Nike

only has to pay $300 million a year and

not only gets that much airtime during

the Super Bowl they get that much

airtime during all

272 NFL games a year they also have this

deal in the NBA where a Nike logo is

visible for around 24 minutes every

single game when you watch an MLB game

Nike logos are strategically placed on

the chest so every time the camera Zooms

in on a player's face the Nike logo is

in the shot if a player turns around

another logo is strategically placed on

their pants to maximize exposure all the

team gear is also made by Nike so when

they cut to a coach or The Dugout

there's a Nike logo and all the replica

jerseys are also made by Nike so if

there's a fan shot the Nike logo is

still there the logo dominates the game

and a ful length playoff broadcast the

Nike logo was visible

66% of the time that is an hour and 40

minutes of exposure extrapolate this

over an entire MLB season and Nike gets

14.5 million seconds of airtime

243,000 hours of airtime which

essentially is the equivalent to paying

for

486,000

302 commercials and that is why Nike

spent 1 billion

for this