A jersey patch deal between the NBA’s New York Knicks and the Saudi General Entertainment Authority’s Riyadh Season collapsed shortly before the 2023-24 season, forcing the team’s owner MSG Sports to cover the inventory with another one of its properties: Sphere.
SportBusiness has learned that a deal between Knicks owner MSG Sports and the Saudi GEA was close to being announced when, at the last minute, the deal was pulled from the table by the team’s ownership.
One source said that the deal had gone through multiple rounds of approval at MSG Sports. The deal would have seen Riyadh Season displayed on the Knicks jersey from the 2023-24 season onward. The inventory was marketed at an asking price of $30m (€27.6m) per season.
Las Vegas-based entertainment venue Sphere subsequently stepped up to acquire the patch property ahead of the NBA season tip-off on October 24. Sphere Entertainment and MSG Sports are both controlled by James Dolan, who serves as executive chairman and chief executive for both entities.
Riyadh Season is an annual state-funded entertainment and sports festival hosted in the capital city during the Saudi winter. It is operationally controlled by a Saudi public body, the GEA, under the auspices of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that has also invested in the LIV Golf venture and Premier League club Newcastle United.
According to one well-placed source, MSG Sports told Riyadh Season representatives that objections from the office of the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, were a contributing factor in their decision to pull the deal.
The mayor has previously engaged in issues of Saudi-backed sports sponsorship in New York. In September 2022, the mayor was urged by victims’ groups associated with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to rescind approval for the Aramco Team Series, the Ladies European Tour golf series financed by Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco, which took place at the Donald Trump-owned Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point course in the Bronx, New York the following month.
In a statement published September 1, Mayor Adams criticised the LET’s deal with Aramco and agreed to closely review information provided by 9/11 victim groups focused on newly-declassified FBI documents on the attacks.
While acknowledging that “the city currently has no legal basis to prevent this tournament”, he added: “It is outrageous that the Trump Organisation agreed to host a tournament with this organisation while knowing how much pain it would cause New Yorkers.”
MSG Sports and the New York Mayor’s Office declined to comment when contacted for this article.
Sources also believe the NBA would have been made aware of the proposed deal. However it is unclear what role, if any, the league played in the deal’s collapse. A spokesperson for the NBA told SportBusiness: “We did not veto a patch partnership proposal from the Knicks.”
It is further understood that the deal was not referred to the NBA’s marketing and business operation, which is responsible for approving team sponsorship with brands across high-visibility inventory like jersey patches, arena naming rights and court apron signage.
Commissioner Adam Silver has previously dubbed Saudi’s investment in sport as a “double-edged sword”, but has not ruled out sovereign wealth funds, more generally, taking ownership stakes in NBA franchises in the future.
Riyadh Season
Riyadh Season’s proposed patch deal with the Knicks would have been the first Saudi-backed sponsorship deal in the big four US leagues. But despite the deal’s collapse, other commercial relationships between the Saudi GEA and MSG Sports were unaffected.
The Saudi GEA agreed the Sphere’s first-ever physical branding and advertising deal, using its advertising time from October 3 onward to promote the heavyweight boxing bout between Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury in Riyadh, which took place on October 28. Sphere was announced as the Knicks’ jersey patch sponsor on October 24.
Riyadh Season has had more success promoting its brand via a major European sports property. In October, Italian Serie A club AS Roma ended its quest for a main shirt sponsor, agreeing a two-year deal with the winter festival. Riyadh Season also secured some pitch-side LED visibility in a deal with AS Roma’s women’s team where it could not tie down the main shirt deal.
The men’s shirt deal attracted some controversy in the Italian capital because Rome was then competing with Riyadh to host Expo 2030, the upcoming World Expo. A subsequent plan by Rome Expo to hit back by taking on the main shirt rights at city rivals Lazio failed to materialise.
In November, Riyadh won the vote to host World Expo 2030, which will take place for six months during late 2030 and early 2031.