Phillies add Independence Blue Cross advertising patch to their uniforms

Starting Wednesday, the Phillies will play with the emblem of Independence Blue Cross on their sleeves as they join a growing list of sports franchises that have added advertising to their uniforms.

The terms of their agreement were not revealed, but Phillies managing partner and CEO John Middleton said the sponsorship patch is a multiyear deal that’s less than the 25-year pact the team struck with Citizens Bank to name the ballpark but “way more than any other sponsorship deal.”

All five of the team’s uniform tops will feature the IBX logo starting with Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Yankees. The health insurer is also featured on the jerseys of the Flyers and Union.

» READ MORE: Citizens Bank Park has given us 20 years of great memories, should be good for 100: Phillies owner John Middleton.

“It’s a huge deal,” Middleton said. “It’s right up there with the naming rights of the stadium. This is an identification between a business and the Phillies. It’s enormously strong and important to the organization, but it’s also going to be highly visible to the fans. … You look at the TV and you can always see the patch on the sleeve.”

Beginning last season, the 30 teams in Major League Baseball were allowed to add advertising to their uniforms. The Phillies, who are the 22nd to add a patch, played with blank sleeves until they secured a deal.

The New York Yankees reportedly earn $25 million per year for their patch, the Boston Red Sox earn $18 million, and the San Diego Padres — the first MLB team to land a sponsor — earn $10 million.

The NBA, NHL, and MLS permit teams to have sponsor identification on their uniforms, though the NFL limits advertisements to practice jerseys.

The Phillies reached the World Series in 2022, fell a win shy of returning in 2023, and hold baseball’s best record this season and regularly play on national TV. They have baseball’s fourth-highest payroll, at $249 million, this season.

“This was an important deal for all the reasons a deal can be important,” Middleton said.

The Phillies entered Monday with the second-highest total attendance (2.31 million fans) and third-best average attendance (41,279) in the majors, putting them on pace for their best attendance since 2012. In 2014, they signed a 25-year TV deal worth $2.5 billion, and Sportico, a media site covering the business of sports, said the Phillies finished last season with MLB’s seventh-highest revenue.

» READ MORE: After years toiling, Carlos Estévez is happy to join a star-laden Phillies core: ‘I’m in the right place’

Business is strong, but the Phillies have carried a top-five payroll since 2022, which they said prompted them this season to sell more advertising at the ballpark. They replaced their out-of-town scoreboard on the right-field wall with a digital board that is mostly used for ads and added branding elsewhere. A sponsorship patch on the uniforms was expected.

“I always found that the passion Philadelphia sports fans have for our teams was always rooted in the passion for the city and the pride in the city,” Middleton said. “I think when you have two long-term Philadelphia institutions with very high profiles finding a way to come together to better serve Philadelphia, I think that’s great. And I think the fans will view it as great. It’s a win-win. "

The Phillies and IBX have been longtime partners. In 2020, the health insurer’s logo was painted on the grass near the dugout after teams were allowed to advertise on the field when the pandemic wiped away ticket sales.

“It’s important for us to have an opportunity to amplify our brand,” IBX president and CEO Greg Deavens said. “Certainly our partnership with the Phillies has allowed us to do that. Last season, we expanded the partnership to include the signage over the right-field wall. A lot of home runs have been hit over that wall. We’ve gotten a lot of attention for the brand through that.

“We view this expanded arrangement as continuing to amplify the brand but also as two organizations coming together to double down on some of the initiatives that we’ll work on together around health and well being.”

The Phillies are “the best franchise in baseball right now, so it’s a great uniform for our patch to be on. We’re really excited about it,” Deavens said.

» READ MORE: ‘That’s John Middleton!’ Why the Phillies owner is always wandering around Citizens Bank Park.

Along with the patch, the suite level at Citizens Bank Park will be renamed the Independence Blue Cross Suite Level, and the two parties will work together on health initiatives. Middleton said the agreement is “more than a patch deal.”

“Were there other opportunities? Sure, there were,” Middleton said. “But there was no company that we were talking to that enhanced the Phillies brand with its association like IBX. There was no company that enhanced our ability to do more in the community than IBX. This wasn’t a financial deal. The financial deal was the easiest part of the deal. This was about the Phillies trying to do more in the community and who can we have as a partner to help us do that.”