According to a report from the Wall Street Journal Monday morning, starting with the 2017-18 season the NBA will stop distributing the cheaper replica jerseys to sporting good stores and other retailers. The jerseys will only be made available for purchase on NBA.com or at the online retailers Fanatics, which will manufacture the jerseys.
The higher-priced, stitched and game-quality jerseys will still be available for purchase at retailers around the country and world and these are currently priced anywhere from $110 to $300.
The aforementioned replica jerseys are currently priced at $70 in stores.
There are a few positives and negatives with this bold decision by the NBA, the positive is that fans will be able to get a popular player’s replica jersey sooner and presumably would have more choice than what would be available in stores (imagine how many more Jeremy Lin jerseys we would have seen in 2012), but it is a huge blow for large sporting good retailers across the country who rely on NBA replica jersey sales as a sizable portion of their own sales.
As a NBA fanatic since the age of 5, I have fond memories of my parents taking me to the mall to buy me replica sports jerseys of my favorite players like Penny Hardaway, Kevin Johnson, Steve Nash, Tracy McGrady, etc. so some of that nostalgia will be lost, but this may be the way to go with more people doing the majority of their shopping online these days.
It will be interesting to track how this change will affect jersey sales moving forward and what effects it might have on the NBA brand.
Can we go back to the era when replica jerseys were $45 and the “swingman” jerseys were $70 or $75? Those were the days…
