Sources: Celtics announce sponsorship deal with GE to have company's logo on team jerseys

ByDarren Rovell ESPN logo
Tuesday, January 24, 2017

The Boston Celtics will announce on Wednesday that the team has signed a wide-ranging sponsorship deal with GE that includes the rights to have the company's logo on its jerseys, sources told ESPN.com.

Terms of the deal were not immediately known, but sources close to the deal said that GE will become the team's data and analytics partner.

Last year, the conglomerate agreed to move its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston.

The deal is the third sponsorship for an NBA team that includes jersey logo rights. Starting next season, StubHub will have a patch on the Philadelphia 76ers jerseys and the Sacramento Kings will have a Blue Diamond logo on their jerseys. The allowing of teams to start selling a 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 inch space on jerseys corresponds to the first year of the league's deal with Nike, who takes over for Adidas next season.

The league has said that jerseys sold nationally will not include the logo patches, but that teams have the right to sell jerseys with patches inside the arena.

The Kings and the 76ers' deals were said to be each worth $5 million annually. Sources said that other NBA teams were slow to add a patch deal because the rest of the marketplace hadn't been set. While numbers aren't immediately known, teams are expected to use terms of the Celtics deal to help better set the rest of the marketplace. It is known that the Golden State Warriors are asking $15 million to $20 million a year for a spot on their jerseys.

Teams are allowed to sell the logo spot to only one company and only for three years, as it is considered by the league to be a pilot program.