Before Tuesday night’s NBA season opener, the New York Knicks will be awarded their 2026 championship rings, the final ceremonial flourish commemorating their first title in 53 years. Until the rings are presented to the players, their provenance is a mystery.
That’s because championship rings may be the last milestone moment in professional sports without an exclusive sponsor. Out of the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, NWSL or WNBA, none have singular championship ring providers, instead letting each year’s winning team select their jeweler of choice.
That leagues have no official ring provider stands in contrast to the rest of the colossal, commercialized pro sports industry. Virtually every ritual has been sponsored to the hilt: Fast food purveyors like Chick-fil-A have turned second-half free throws at NBA games into a gambit for chicken nuggets. Swim goggles worn by pro athletes in winning locker rooms carry logos for celebratory libations like Moët & Chandon or Michelob Ultra. Even the Tiffany & Co. trophies awarded to championship teams have official transport luggage from Louis Vuitton.
But given the open market for championship rings, a range of jewelers from bespoke local artisans to industry stalwarts like Tiffany and Jostens compete for the ultimate commission: a custom ring order from a winning team.
“Behind the scenes now, jewelers understand what a big ‘get’ that is to make the year’s championship ring. And so there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes jockeying to get that,” said Vikki Tobak, an author and curator of “For the Win: Objects of Sports Excellence,” an exhibit currently on view at the American Museum of Natural History.
Some jewelers have official agreements with individual sports teams, like Balfour and the New York Yankees. Still, the predominant players in the championship ring category today include memorabilia company Jostens, whose Champions Collective has designed and manufactured recent rings for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Kansas City Chiefs, and Jason of Beverly Hills, whose commissions include the Seattle Seahawks and the Boston Celtics.
Tobak said the Celtics ended up choosing Jason of Beverly Hills for their 2024 NBA championship rings after being referred to the jeweler’s services by their archrival Lakers. Spokespeople for the Celtics and Jason of Beverly Hills did not respond to requests for comment.
Still, the competition among jewelers is becoming more intense, not only for sports teams’ commissions but also to design ever-flashier pieces with intricate details. Jostens’ design for the 2025 WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces featured a smaller, removable ring for everyday wear that could be magnetically detached from the bulbous commemorative ring.
Alex Moss, a celebrity jeweler who has designed pieces for Drake and A$AP Rocky, said designing a championship ring for a sports team is one of his current goals, but he dislikes the recent trend of over-the-top baubles with extra bells and whistles.
“I do feel like a lot of these teams do injustices when it comes to championship rings,” he said. “I think it’s become very gimmicky and very much catered towards, ‘How can I, as a jeweler, how can I get the most views and engagement on social media?’ So I feel like the art and the principle behind the championship ring has been lost.”
Regarding his own design aesthetic for sports rings, Moss said: “It’s like a car. I’d rather drive a Rolls-Royce than a Tesla that has all these tricks and buttons.”
If Moss did end up with an order to design a championship ring, he estimates the cost would be somewhere between $2 million and $8 million, depending upon the size of the winning team, the number of rings ordered for support and front-office staff, and variability in raw materials used for the designs.
To be sure, the New York-based Moss has designed other Knicks jewelry. On the evening that the team clinched the championship, he posted to his Instagram a diamond pendant featuring the Knicks logo imposed over the Larry O’Brien Trophy. In the wee hours of the following morning, he said he received orders from Knicks starters Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns, which Moss said he provided to the players at the cost of materials used. They wore the pendants at the Knicks’ championship parade the following week.
Other jewelers like Greg Yuna have published mock-ups of proposed 2026 Knicks rings. Tobak, the jewelry historian, said she noticed more jewelers campaigning for sports-ring commissions this year than in recent memory.
It’s an auspicious time for the industry, since jewelry is a bright spot in an otherwise challenged luxury market. In their most recent earnings reports, both LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Kering reported jewelry as their fastest-growing segment, outpacing fashion and leather goods. LVMH has ramped up its presence in sports in recent years, developing trophy trunks for the FIFA World Cup and the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy, as well a heavy presence at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Whether leagues ever designate official championship ring providers remains to be seen. A source from one of the sports leagues said franchises prefer the flexibility to choose jewelers who can reflect their team’s brand. Moss, however, thinks ring sponsors are inevitable.
“It will happen one day, for a fact,” Moss said. Not that he’s looking forward to it: “Championship rings are really for [the players]. Can we not make it about money?”
This article first appeared on Sportico, which is operated by WWD-parent company PMX Global.