The Golden State Warriors NBA franchise has announced a new ‘landmark’ partnership with AI cloud computing firm Iren, which becomes the team's official jersey patch partner.
Through this multi-year deal, Iren’s logo will appear on all Warriors jerseys from the 2026-27 season, alongside a prominent branding presence around the team’s 18,064-capacity Chase Center home.
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Iren will also sponsor the Warriors’ annual City Edition initiative and, as the team’s official AI cloud partner, collaborate on a series of AI literacy-focused community initiatives.
This agreement extends to the associated WNBA franchise, the Golden State Valkyries, where Iren will appear on warmup jerseys, and the NBA G-League’s Santa Cruz Warriors, where Iren will also be a jersey patch partner.
Speaking on the announcement, Warriors chief commercial officer Mike Kitts said: “The Warriors jersey badge is our most visible global platform, and finding a partner that shares our vision for both innovation and community engagement was paramount.”
The agreement is reportedly the most lucrative sponsorship in the history of North American team sports, valued at around $50 million per year.
If that is indeed the case, it will no doubt be because of the high profile the Warriors franchise has accrued for itself over the past 12 years.
Overall, four NBA championships since 2015 and the emergence of stars Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and more have made the Warriors the league’s most valuable franchise.
That in turn powered a high-profile multi-year sponsorship with the team’s first jersey patch partner, Japanese e-commerce brand Rakuten, which at one point was the most lucrative in the NBA, and which Iren is stepping in to replace after the downsizing of that deal earlier this month.
Since that last championship triumph in 2022, however, the team’s on-field powers have waned, with the stars that carried them through a dynastic period in the 2010s ageing, declining, or being traded away.
With that in mind, perhaps Rakuten sought to downsize its coverage of the team, or the Warriors sought too high a fee for renewal, given the relative lack of championship prospects over the coming seasons.
By comparison, the global brand cache of the Warriors was no doubt an attractive prospect for a burgeoning tech firm like Iren, regardless of the on-court status of the team, and its position in the San Francisco market was doubtlessly valuable.
San Francisco is a major tech hub, and as such, sports franchises in the area, such as the Warriors and the San Francisco Giants, have always benefitted from locally based tech firm sponsorships, of which Iren (which has a regional hub in the city) is one.
Watts continued: “Iren is committed to powering the future of technology, education, and local impact, and aligns perfectly with our goals as we look to push the boundaries of innovation on a global scale and create a lasting legacy across the Bay Area and beyond.”
