The NBA season is back, and brands are capitalizing on the hype by putting together branded collaborations with the league’s biggest teams.
As the Milwaukee Bucks and others taught us before, a team has an opportunity to do so much more than just create basic team gear. It can become a full lifestyle brand to connect with people who might never watch a second of an actual game, but still take pride in the team.
With the opening tip-off, two particular brand partnerships with the NBA stood out to us, as they seem to capture two main trends in sports marketing these days.
The first is a partnership with the streetwear brand MARKET. True to the others like this, the drop comes as a limited capsule, with hoodies, shorts, and T-shirts done with 14 franchises, including the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, and more.
The designs use geographic and cultural motifs for each team, like palm trees for Los Angeles, wind for Chicago, the Statue of Liberty for New York, and so on. Our favorite is Bigfoot on the Portland Trailblazers’ T-shirt.
Market x NBA Apparel Collectionhttps://t.co/tBPIpdHxOt pic.twitter.com/1MJAQrMJG6
— JustFreshKicks (@JustFreshKicks) October 27, 2023
Elsewhere in the league, while still touching on the sort of streetwear style that’s so big in apparel right now, Draft Kings just did a branded collaboration with the NBA. This one is much more like a traditional promotional campaign, being that it advertises a business rather than an apparel designer.
However, DraftKings was smart enough to disguise it as an apparel drop, too, with the company’s crown design working its way onto team logos.
“Through our longstanding relationship with the NBA, we were able to tap into the passion that millions of DraftKings customers have for the NBA by creating a custom, co-branded clothing collection that fans everywhere can enjoy,” Matt Kalish, co-founder and president of DraftKings North America, said in a statement. “There is a strong affinity toward DraftKings’ signature crown logo, and combining that with one-of-a-kind designs that feature NBA teams allows us to further connect with the lifestyle of our customers in a new way.”
The apparel will be available on the DraftKings website, as well as at pop-up locations around the country beginning later this week.
The designs are subtle. The Boston Celtics mascot is suddenly wearing a crown, for example. It doesn’t scream “commercial,” but if you know, you know. And if you don’t, you’re asking the person wearing it what’s up with the crown. And then maybe you download DraftKings.
DraftKings is rolling out NBA team-branded apparel for the 2023-2024 season, as part of its partnership with the league. Will be sold on the DraftKings website and at pop-up events in various cities. pic.twitter.com/YSZPTkAz9t
— Sam McQuillan (@sam_mcquill) October 18, 2023
This promotion is sort of equal parts streetwear drop and equal parts traditional stadium giveaway. Think about when you go to a game and the item you receive at the door or at your seat has both the team branding as well as a sponsor. Maybe the T-shirt has a sponsor on the back, or the magnet calendar features a logo in the top corner.
This, like many sports promotions that became big during the pandemic, just skips the need to go to the game and reaches the customer where they live (and gamble).
The NBA is a good case study right now in how branding can fit into a sports league, as sponsor patches on jerseys are now the rule rather than the exception. More leagues are starting to follow suit, but the NBA is the leader there.
So, if you want to see how a good sports promotion or co-branding opportunity can look, check out the NBA.
