MLB, Nike and Fanatics Can’t Get Out of Their Own Way. A Look at the 2024 Nike Vapor Premier Elite Jersey

I didn’t think I would be writing here again so soon, but here we are back again. A few days ago, I wrote about this year’s replica jerseys offerings from the fine folks over at MLB/Nike/Fanatics, which you can view right here. With more information and photos being provided as each day passes, it now feels like the appropriate time to discuss this year’s 2024 Nike Vapor Premier Elite Jersey aka the one’s the players wear on the field.

Before we deep dive into this one, I thought it might be good to provide a little bit of context and history, well at least going back a few years with some information about Fanatics, the jerseys and how we ended up here where we are now currently.

Flashback to the spring/summer of 2015. Fanatics secures a 17 year deal with MLB to operate the league’s online retail shopping website, which would begin during the 2016 baseball season and run through the end of the 2033 baseball season. Fanatics at this time had already been in charge of order fulfillments through team websites and MLB’s online shopping website. Basically, with this deal, they would be running the show in terms of online retail shopping for MLB. This would also eventually extend to all four major sports during that same year. Fanatics already had a presence in this space, now they have an absolute chokehold on everything shopping related. During this time, Majestic was the official jersey supplier of MLB. That…