St. Louis Cardinals fans react as team announces new sleeve advertisement sponsor: "This could’ve been worse" "Looks like a giveaway jersey"
The St. Louis Cardinals became the latest in a long line of teams to debut a sleeve advertisement on Tuesday. The team debuted its new home jersey adorned with the logo of Stifel, a St. Louis-based investment banking company. Stifel also had the company logo on the jerseys of the NHL's St. Louis Blues.
For over 100 years, @Stifel has been a part of the fabric of downtown St. Louis.
Today, they join the fabric of the St. Louis Cardinals as our official jersey patch partner. https://t.co/37xRGqo3pf
Stifel agreed to a seven-year deal for its logo to be displayed on the sleeve of one of the most iconic jerseys in MLB history. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The team will likely wear the patches on their game uniforms Tuesday night when they play host to the Los Angeles Angels.
St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III told reporters at the logo reveal:
"We are proud to partner with Stifel in unveiling our first jersey patch sponsor. We worked closely with Ron Kruszewski and his team at Stifel on the patch design to make sure it fit tastefully on our iconic uniform, and they even agreed to slightly modify their word mark to fit the red and blue color combination that we use for our classic 'Birds on the Bat' logo."
Cardinals fans were fairly underwhelming in their responses to seeing the logo on the team's sleeve during Tuesday afternoon's reveal.
@katiejwoo The best thing I can say about uniform advertisements is that this could’ve been worse
@Cardinals @Stifel Shoulda just had Stifel sponsor the beer stands instead of the uniforms so the people who buy tickets to watch this team can drink for free
@Cardinals @Stifel Maybe they can patch us in some pitching and players who can hit.
The St. Louis Cardinals fanbase appears to have gotten off lucky. Many advertisement announcements have been met with derision — such as the Houston Astros' gigantic "OXY" patch or the New York Mets' massive white square that otherwise subtly advertised NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
The Mets' ad patch looked so abhorrent that the team had it redesigned to something much more subtle after a few weeks of wear.
DeWitt touched on this during the reveal, saying:
"Both Ron and I are confident that this design strikes the perfect balance between preserving the integrity of our uniform while providing great exposure for Stifel."
@mikebloodworth @katiejwoo It's a subtle logo, so I'm not mad at it. It could have been something huge like the Motorola logo on the Padres' jerseys.
@Cardinals @Stifel Glad that it’s subtle and doesn’t distract from the birds on the bat!
@Cardinals @Stifel Man I'm pumped now. This is the turning point.
Of course, with the St. Louis Cardinals occupying last place in the National League Central division with a 10-19 record, the team's worst start to a season in 50 years, fans aren't exactly caring how the new sleeve ad patch looks.
@Cardinals I don't even know what to say anymore. "Official jersey patch partner." Glad you're focused on what matters.
@Cardinals @Stifel You can shell out top dollar for narration of a sponsor announcement. Could you do the same for the team?
@Cardinals @Stifel Unless Stifel is a young pitcher that hits upper 90’s on the gun with a filthy slider, I don’t see how this helps…
Of course, the timing of the sleeve patch announcement was unfortunate in that longtime St. Louis Cardinals radio announcer Mike Shannon died on Saturday. Many fans felt that announcing a patch dedicated to the team's radio voice for 50 years may have been a better way to spend Tuesday afternoon.
@Cardinals @Stifel Now how about a patch on the other sleeve paying tribute to Mike Shannon?
St. Louis Cardinals hope patch brings good luck
If the Stifel patch can conjure up any good luck for the Cardinals, the team sure could use it. St. Louis enters Tuesday's series opener against the Angels as the second-worst team in the NL, just one game ahead of the Colorado Rockies.