NRL Player Jersey Names

- By Max Wright

In early February 2025, CEO of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs Aaron Warburton raised the question of player names on the back of jerseys in the National Rugby League (NRL), which, alongside the Australian Football League (AFL), remain an outlier in this area.

Since Major League Baseball in the USA added player names in 1960, the prominence of featuring player names on team jerseys has grown into one of the most recognisable characteristics in sport, with most recent high-profile examples of Test Cricket and International Rugby Union following suit in 2019 and 2022 respectively.

However, this location is regarded as a high-value source of exposure for club partners, with New Zealand Warriors CEO Cameron George saying, “I'd prefer to have my sponsor on there from a commercial aspect. The commercial reality for us is very important, and taking the sponsor off the back will have a financial impact.".

So, what is the potential trade-off for NRL Rights Holders of altering the jersey to accommodate the names?

According to YouGov Sport’s Exposure Monitoring software, this area of a jersey receives approximately 36 hours of TV Exposure for a given club for a season, which could translate to 610 hours of coverage across all teams – which would be hugely impactful on player recognition if names were in that position.

Utilising TV audiences and factoring in the Brand Impact Score – YouGov Sport’s market-leading exposure quality assessment – the asset is currently worth an average of $8.8M (AUD) for each club in Net Sponsorship Value on Dedicated TV Broadcasts.

To gauge the feelings of the spectators, YouGov Sport asked Australian Sports Fans their views on the matter, with 72% in favour of having the names visible on matchday jerseys and only 6% disapproving.

There was a prevailing agreement with this action across demographics, with men and women both equally supporting the change. Meanwhile, the majority of Fans in all age groups are eager to see the development, although those between 18-34 are +15%pts. more likely to agree than Over 50s, showing those in favour of the change skew towards the next generation of Fans.

When asked their reasoning for supporting the change, 44% of those who want names to appear do so because it would ‘increase the ability to recognise players’ – this was particularly the case for Female Fans, as over half of respondents gave this as their most important reason.

However, Fans between 18-24 most commonly aligned with the fact that player names would enable ‘more of a connection between their heroes on the field and the Fans in the stand’.

Of the small number of people who disagreed with the notion of player names on shirts, their reasoning was mostly because they feel ‘the team should come before any individual praise’.

As a supplementary question, YouGov Sport asked Fans if the addition of player names would make them more likely to purchase team merchandise which included player names, which was also met positively, with 47% of people declaring it would be more probable that they would buy a jersey.

This was most notably prevalent amongst young fans, with 84% of people between 18-24 feeling more inclined to purchase, while fans who have children are 16%pts. more likely to acquire merchandise than those without.

So overall, the fans are greatly in favour of the addition of the player names, but clubs may be hesitant in some quarters, given the high exposure and value available to partners situated where the names would be placed.