The Warriors signed a record-breaking three-year jersey-path deal worth $60 million with Japanese tech company Rakuten, reports ESPN’s Darren Rovell:
The Golden State Warriors signed the largest of the NBA advertising patch deals this week, selling the space on its jersey for the next three years to Japanese tech company Rakuten.
Sources say the deal is worth $20 million per year, nearly doubling the second-highest deal, signed by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Warriors will sport Rakuten’s genuine logo with red and black on their white jerseys and a white version of the logo on the blue-and-slate jerseys.
Rakuten, which owns cash-back site Ebates, messaging app Viber and e-book brand Kobo, has ratcheted up its sponsorship spending as of late. In July, its name started appearing on FC Barcelona’s kit in a deal worth 220 million euros ($262 million) over four years.
“We love sports,” Rakuten founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani told ESPN. “There’s a lot of emotion to it — great stories, smiles and tears.”
This is a big deal from a money standpoint, but it wasn’t even the priciest offer that the Warriors received:
“We actually had multiple finalists,” Warriors chief marketing officer Chip Bowers said. “This was not the biggest deal that we were offered.”
The Warriors confirmed the news with press release:
Warriors and Rakuten form jersey partnership. pic.twitter.com/DKXCnZlZq1
— Warriors PR (@WarriorsPR) September 12, 2017
They also posted the following video:
Inside look at how the Dubs & @RakutenToday came together for new jersey badge sponsorship ? #WarriorsRakuten pic.twitter.com/K2X6GU1W36
— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) September 12, 2017
