In recent years, the NFL has added a jersey patch for players making their pro football debuts. This year, a tweak to the process inches the NFL closer to turning the jerseys into a new revenue stream.
Topps announced on Wednesday that rookies will wear a “debut” patch during their first regular-season NFL games. The patch will then be embedded into a one-of-one autographed trading card.
It’s surely the product of a deal between Fanatics (which now owns Topps) and the NFL, one that results in the payment of money by Fanatics to the NFL.
While it’s not a classic ad on the jerseys, it is. The patches immediately become something that fans can try to acquire by purchasing packs of Topps trading cards.
It’s inevitable that the NFL will have ads on jerseys — especially with college football teams poised to monetize their uniforms in 2026. After everyone huffs and puffs and doesn’t blow the NCAA’s house down over the development, it will become easier for the NFL to do the same.
And, frankly, ads on jerseys can’t look much worse than the current collection of alternate jerseys that Nike has been pushing on the NFL, and that the NFL is hoping will become a gold rush of merchandise purchases.
Either way, everyone is chasing more money. Putting ads on NFL jerseys is an untapped frontier that the NFL is beginning to mine with these new Topps patches.
