Ben Simmons Financial Impact On The 76ers

The 2016 NBA Draft 1st Overall Pick Ben Simmons is already having an impact on the 76ers before ever playing in an NBA Regular season game.  According to fanatics.com Ben Simmons' jersey is the 10th highest seller among NBA Players.  Also SixersShop.com has seen a 76 percent spike in sales compared to last summer.  At the Sixers Beach Bash, Sixers CEO Scott O'Neil told Mike Gill that the team is number one in the league in new full-season ticket sales and they project to be in the top 13 by the end of this upcoming season in the NBA in total tickets sold.

Huffington Post Sports Business Writer and University of Miami Professor Alicia Jessop joined Josh Hennig on Friday and discussed what stands out to her:

"To me the number that's more impressive deals with this young man's jersey sales and it shows the popularity and the need that the NBA has for a new young talent to come out and emerge and prove himself.  If you track the top rated NBA jersey sales since 2013 you look at the top 10, the leaders in that top ten include Kobe Bryant and Derrick Rose; there were periods of time that those two guys were leading the list and not playing games for extended periods of time.  So there's been a decent amount of time that the NBA has needed someone new to captivate fans interest and I can't think of a better market for someone like Simmons to come in to because what we know about Philadelphia is Philadelphia has very passionate sports fans, it's a huge TV market and it's a very populated market.  So if he can prove himself and he can be the player that the 76ers need him to be, he is going to have an extremely lucrative career on and off of the court"

Checkout what Jessop had to say about Tim Tebow Mania, the NFL's recent issues, and her observations from seeing Simmons in NBA Summer League