A League of Their Own

The U.S. sports licensing landscape is expanding, incrementally, with the launch or expansion of new merchandise programs tied to professional sports leagues beyond the “big five” of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer.

Property owners—mostly brand-new leagues—that have recently introduced licensing and/or sponsorship initiatives include:

• Major League Rugby, which inaugurated play in April 2018. It partnered with XBlades, an Australian company, to be the official on-field apparel partner for the league’s seven teams and officials. The products are available to fans through the teams.
• The United Soccer League, which had its first season of play in 2011. It announced its new licensing effort earlier this month, hiring the Crystal Agency to expand its array of products, through licensing, into apparel, novelties, accessories, and other categories typical of sports-merchandise programs.
• The Alliance of American Football, an American-style football league set to begin play in February 2019. It announced in July that it had partnered with G-III Sports by Carl Banks and Iconix Brand Group’s Starter label. As the licensee of both Starter and the AAF, G-III would produce the league’s Starter-logoed on-field and sidelines apparel.
• The Professional Fighters League, a mixed martial arts entity that follows a league-like structure to pit fighters against each other throughout a season. It launched its official PFL website this month in partnership with Viewlift. The site includes a shop featuring t-shirts, caps, hoodies, polos, and accessories. Fuji Sports is the league’s official glove sponsor.

These leagues are just in the emerging stages of developing an array of products and are unlikely to make huge inroads at retail in the face of daunting competition from the five leading sports leagues, especially initially. But these nascent programs begin to address the needs of their so-far niche fan communities, both online and in some cases at retail in the cities where their teams play.