The first Friday of every November is National Jersey Friday. On this day, sports fans are encouraged to express their fandom by wearing the jerseys of their favorite players and/or teams.
National Jersey Friday lands on Nov. 3 this year, and to mark the occasion, we'll explore the tales and sales of top jerseys from the four major American sports leagues, from how fans choose which jersey to buy to which NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB players have the top-selling jerseys.
Top NFL Jerseys
As of mid-October, the top-selling jersey in the NFL belonged to Eagles QB Jalen Hurts. Jets QB Aaron Rodgers was second, Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons third, quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Fields, Tom Brady, and Bryce Young took up the next six spots, and running back Christian McCaffrey rounded out the top 10.
Hurts grabbed the top spot by ascending to stardom with a trip to the Super Bowl this past February, while Rodgers' popularity can be attributed to him switching teams from the Packers to the Jets in the offseason, though he tore his Achilles just four snaps into his tenure in New York. Parsons is one of two non-quarterbacks on this list, but he's the face of the Cowboys, who have been dubbed "America's team" and have the NFL's largest fanbase. The Taylor Swift effect had yet to take hold when this data was collected, but the next jersey sales update will almost certainly feature Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce joining his teammate Mahomes in the top 10, as his relationship with the pop star has led to a sizable influx of Kelce fans.
Top NBA Jerseys
The 2023-24 season just tipped off last week, but for the 2022-23 season, the 10 best-selling jerseys belonged to LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Ja Morant, Damian Lillard, and Kyrie Irving. James and Curry are the faces of the league, and you have to go back a full decade to Carmelo Anthony in 2012-13 to find the last time that someone other than LeBron or Steph occupied the top spot in jersey sales.
Lillard was probably the most surprising member of last season's list but has a good chance of remaining in the top 10 after an offseason team switch from Portland to Milwaukee. Two-time MVP Nikola Jokic finished 12th in jersey sales last season, but after leading the Nuggets to a championship in June, the Serbian big man could join fellow European stars Antetokounmpo and Doncic among the league's most popular players.
Top NHL Jerseys
The NHL lags far behind the NFL and NBA in TV revenue, but hockey fans still buy plenty of jerseys, and the puck just dropped on the 2023-24 season in October. Between June and October of this year, the 10 best-selling NHL jerseys belonged to Connor Bedard, Jack Hughes, Brad Marchand, Sidney Crosby, David Pastrnak, Patrice Bergeron, Alex Ovechkin, Kirill Kaprizov, Nathan MacKinnon, and Cale Makar.
Surprisingly absent from that list is the league's best player, Connor McDavid, whose brand suffers from playing in Edmonton. Bedard has been billed as the next McDavid, and after going to a far bigger market in Chicago with the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, Bedard became the league's best-seller before he even made his Blackhawks debut. Hughes is another recent first overall pick (2019) and is coming off a breakout season. Crosby and Ovechkin have been the NHL's version of James and Curry since the mid-2000s, but hockey fans apparently don't push those two to the top of the list every year like basketball fans do with their two superstars.
City Connect and Top MLB Jerseys
If a cool and colorful new baseball jersey catches your eye on National Jersey Friday, it could be one of MLB's City Connect jerseys, developed in partnership with Nike. This line of alternate uniforms designed to reflect cultural aspects of each team's home city launched in 2021, with more designs joining the collection in 2022 and 2023. City Connect Jerseys are currently available for 20 of the 30 MLB teams, with designs in the works for the remainder of the league.
Between the City Connect jerseys and their regular uniforms, the 10 best-selling baseball jerseys for this recently completed season belonged to Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna, Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis, Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve, Julio Rodriguez, Matt Olson, Alex Bregman, and Mike Trout. Ohtani has universal appeal to pitchers, hitters, Americans, and international fans alike, and the two-way Japanese star was putting together one of the greatest all-around seasons in MLB history while playing in the big Los Angeles market prior to hurting his elbow down the stretch. Ohtani will be a free agent this season, and if he switches teams in the offseason, he'll almost certainly have the league's best-selling jersey again next year.
Keys to Top-Selling Jerseys
Based on the top-10 lists above, we can deduce the top drivers affecting fans' decision making when it comes to purchasing jerseys. The absences of Jokic and McDavid suggests a player's market size and marketability are both even bigger factors than performance on the court, field, rink, or diamond. Being a young player who brings a fanbase hope can also make you a popular pick, as evidenced by the presence of 2023 first overall draft picks Young and Bedard, as well as exciting young players Fields and Rodriguez. In the same vein, it wouldn't be surprising to see Victor Wembanyama contend for a top-10 spot in 2023-24 NBA jersey sales, as the hype surrounding the 7-foot-4 Frenchman heading into the 2023 NBA Draft was even greater than the anticipation around Bedard.
Besides Kelce, Jokic and Wembanyama, other candidates to crack these lists by National Jersey Friday in 2024 include Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa and Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence, both of whom have their Florida-based franchises leading their respective divisions. Two members of the 2022 World Series champion Astros made baseball's list, so perhaps the 2023 World Series champion Rangers will get some recognition through boosted jersey sales of either ALCS MVP Adolis Garcia or Corey Seager, who became the fourth player in MLB history to be named World Series MVP twice. Texas is among the 20 MLB teams with a City Connect jersey, which should help boost sales this offseason as the team's fans celebrate the first championship in franchise history.
