The latest company to sponsor an NBA team by putting a patch on a jersey is…Bumble, the female-led dating and networking app. The company’s logo will now be appearing on the jersey of the LA Clippers.
The deal brings some serious brand recognition to the four-year old dating app, which is now adding between 75k-100k users per day, with a total of just under 30M.
The multi-year, eight-figure partnership comes a little over a year after the league announced a program to include sponsored patches on team’s jerseys. So far about 20 teams have inked deals with sponsors, including tech companies like Stubhub, Fitbit and Rakuten.
Bumble’s patch is being called an “empowerment badge” and will start appearing on Clippers uniforms tonight.
Notably, the partnership goes deeper than your traditional advertising relationship. The Clippers are one of the most progressive organizations in sports, and is led by the NBA’s largest female leadership team, including the league’s only female president, Gillian Zucker. That makes it a perfect fit to partner with Bumble, a woman-led dating app that has long championed equality and diversity on its platform.
“Never before has a major professional sports team partnered in this way with a female-driven brand like Bumble,” said Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bumble Founder and CEO in a statement. “It’s an honor to partner with an organization as progressive and compassionate as the Clippers. Like us, they know generating awareness for diversity and gender equality is critical to business success.”
This partnership is also a sign that Bumble is going to prioritize sought-after marketing relationships with companies that share its brand values. Additionally the dating app says they will continue to commit marketing dollars to working with brands that have strong female representation in executive management, as well as an emphasis on mentoring the next generation of female rising stars.”
The two companies also say that the partnership will expand the Clippers’ community initiates, focusing on new ways to “strengthen the skills, confidence and knowledge necessary for young women to achieve their full potential.”
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