The Sixers’ business is booming on and off the court after the additions of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown
The Sixers' on-court excitement is driving more business from outside brands, including BodyArmor and Wawa.
The 76ers generated unprecedented excitement in the offseason with two massive swings in trading for Jaylen Brown and signing superstar LeBron James.
They’re off to a solid start start at 4-1, and fan excitement has reached a fever pitch the team hasn’t seen since before The Process.
That on-court excitement is spilling into a massive year off the court. Sixers ticket prices and demand spiked immediately after the Sixers added Brown and LeBron, and the team also has brought in a slate of new corporate partners to start the 2026 season.
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On media day, the team announced a new jersey patch partner, Bloom Energy — after opting out one year early from their previous deal with Crypto.com — in a deal that reportedly is worth over eight figures annually, one of the league’s most lucrative contracts.
“It’s early to understand the total impact of that, but I don’t want to be disingenuous,” Tad Brown, CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment said.
Signing James may have “detonated” the whole thing, but the positive energy and momentum started earlier in the offseason, when the Sixers and HSBE brought Mike Gansey and Bob Myers into the front office.
BodyArmor, the new sports drink partner of the Sixers, “caught lightning in a bottle” by signing its multiyear partnership between the Brown trade and LeBron signing, Don Rouse, vice president of EPICS at Coca-Cola, said.
The brand has been circling a potential partnership with the team for years as it looks to make inroads back into basketball. It partnered with Philly legend Kobe Bryant in 2013 as one of the sports drink company’s initial investors. BodyArmor started the partnership by sponsoring the expanded Blue x White scrimmage.
“It’s all about making a good impression,” Rouse said. “We have one opportunity to make a first impression. The Sixers brought to us, we’re going to have a Blue x White scrimmage, it’s probably going to be an even bigger deal. We were going to be part of it one way or another, but it created an opportunity to reach Sixer fans on a larger scale, especially fans who might not have another chance to see the Sixers live this year.”
The team followed it up with a new partnership with Wawa, which also sponsors the Phillies and Eagles. Wawa will have a specialty Sixers sandwich paper starting in January and hosted a big season-opening tour bus event to begin the partnership. The deal also includes a charitable donation through Philabundance.
“When you think about iconic businesses, you’ve got Wawa, and you have our great sports teams,” Doug Martin, chief marketing officer at Wawa, said. “The Sixers are exciting. It’s going to be an amazing year. They’re bringing in LeBron. They already had a solid team, now LeBron, it just brings the entire city a whole new electric feel, and it just made perfect sense for all the momentum that Wawa has had over the years.”
