Apparel sponsorship in football is big business, with the total value in England’s premier league—by far the most lucrative in the world according to professional services firm Deloitte—reaching £70 million ($143 million) last season.

As clubs look for new ways of attracting sponsors, and helping them make the most of advertising opportunities, a new development from TITV Greiz, the textile research institute of Thuringia, central Germany, could be of interest to them.

The institute recently introduced an idea it is calling partial conductive textile structures, which offers an electronic lighting solution for textiles. It consists of a textile coating that sits on top of the electronic components, with insulation built in to protect against the force of around 15 volts. One of the first applications TITV has looked at is in automotive upholstery. The new solution could provide emergency lighting on the back of seats, for example.

However, institute spokesperson Dr Andreas Neudeck, has told sportstextiles.com that there could also be possible applications in the sports apparel sponsorship arena. “You could not apply this to the shirts players wear during a match,” he said, “because there needs to be a power source. But illuminated sponsorship on padded jackets for players on the bench, or for the whole squad to wear during warm-up could be a possibility. Those jackets could easily have a foil battery built into them as the power source.”

Printing names and logos clearly restricts the number of sponsors teams can chase. Electronic apparel advertising could open the way to extra sponsors and extra revenue.