For years, the NFL has banned tinted visors. Then someone got the bright idea to turn visors into a lucrative sponsorship. Now the NFL will allow lightly tinted visors that are provided by Oakley.
Although the dark sunglasses-style visors that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s are still banned (other than for players with a medical exemption), Oakley visors that are lightly tinted with a pinkish hue will now be allowed.
“We really just got excited about a brand that’s so endemic to sports, but also one that’s a leader in their category from an optical standpoint,” Nana-Yaw Asamoah, the NFL’s VP of business development, told SI.com. “We’ve had rules around visors and what players are allowed to wear on the field, but we haven’t had any relationships there. Through conversations what became uncovered was that from both a performance and safety standpoint, there was a lot more that could be done in this space and working with a brand like Oakley could really take us to the next level on that.”
Visors featuring the Oakley logo have already been worn by players like Kyler Murray during the preseason, and those logos will be commonplace during the regular season, in another way for the NFL to make money.
