Editor’s note: Follow Guardians vs. Tigers live updates and highlights from Game 2 of the AL Wild Card Series.

As the 2025 MLB playoffs get underway, baseball fans are again wondering why players’ helmets are adorned on both sides with a large STRAUSS logo.

Who is STRAUSS?

What is STRAUSS?

Why is STRAUSS taking up so much ad space on MLB helmets this year, including on Cleveland Guardians helmets in their Wild Card series against their AL Central rival Detroit Tigers?

All valid questions.

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STRAUSS is a German-based apparel company. MLB announced a multi-year partnership with the brand last September that will run through 2027, according to CBS reporting.

Earlier this year, it was also announced that STRAUSS and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) joined up for a partnership to have their ads on helmets throughout the entirety of the regular season, not just postseason like in MLB.

They’re impossible to miss, with a five-inch-long by nearly one-inch-tall logo on each side of player helmets.

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“We are proud that STRAUSS selected Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball as the marketing platform to introduce its brand to the U.S. market,” Noah Garden, MLB Deputy Commissioner, Business & Media said in a press release initially announcing the sponsorship, per CBS. “The fact that our two organizations have so much in common — generational legacy, teamwork, dedication to a craft, celebrating a job well done — is a key to what made this partnership so compelling and we’re looking forward to working together for years to come.”

It should come as no surprise to fans that MLB would embrace sponsors advertising on player helmets, provided MLB permitted teams to wear advertisement patches on uniforms since Opening Day 2023.

Other professional sports, including the WNBA and NBA, have added brand sponsorship logos to jerseys already, with broadcasts displaying even more ads superimposed on the courts.

The ad placement on MLB helmets was new to the 2024 postseason, so perhaps baseball fans are used to seeing this type of branding in 2025.

How much did STRAUSS pay MLB, MiLB for helmet logos?

A monetary figure for the multiyear sponsorship deal between MLB and STRAUSS has not been released, so it remains unclear how much STRAUSS paid for their prominent ad placement.

However, according to a Sports Business Journal analysis by David Broughton from last year, STRAUSS was projected to earn anywhere from $10.4 million to $17.2 million in brand value from the helmet decals.

If nothing else, the company is certainly getting noticed.

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