Over the weekend, a viral tweet emerged showing that the Minnesota Wild were selling authentic jerseys with ads on them at their team store. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski poked around and learned that the NHL and Fanatics was giving teams the option of selling jerseys with ads on them.
Sunday, during Washington’s first preseason game of the year against the Buffalo Sabres, we learned where the Capitals fell on the decision.
The Capital One Arena team store was selling jerseys with ads. Capitals Reddit user, WaffleOnABike, and former Capitals blogger (In2Caps) posted a photo of the jerseys and gave me permission to share.
“In the main store, all the Adidas Authentics — that I saw and I went through racks — had the ad, including home and alternate blue,” @WaffleOnABike said. “The Fanatics replica jerseys did not have the ads.”
This was also true for some of the merch vendors across Capital One Arena.
“It was pretty sporadic,” WaffleOnABike said. “I saw some booths selling Adidas Authentic with ads and others not, so presume that they’re just cycling through old inventory first to ultimately go all ads?”
On the blue W alternate jerseys, the ad patch was navy blue with white text. It could be seen on the COA team store Instagram Story.
The Capitals have not yet named a jersey ad sponsor for away games. The Caesar Sportbook patches will only be worn at Capital One Arena because gambling is legalized in DC.
The 2022-23 regular season marks the NHL’s first season with jersey ads.
S/T to @depressedcapsfn for first tweeting!
