The WNBA doesn’t begin play until Saturday when the defending champions, the Detroit Shock, and the perennial powerhouse Los Angeles Sparks tip off in a nationally televised game that promises a full slate of action. But earlier this week, the league started its season with a bang.

At a press conference in New York City with NBA commissioner David Stern in attendance, the Phoenix Mercury announced a sponsorship agreement with LifeLock, an identity theft prevention company. The agreement will result in the Mercury jerseys and the floor bearing the company name. This arrangement will make the Mercury’s annual budget rise from the red to the black.

Finding a sponsorship deal these days is like finding an opening in the Sparks defense, but that isn’t half the story. By putting a company name on the jersey ahead of the team logo, the WNBA is broaching new ground. Sports purists need to put their hackles down. Sponsorships are already so prevalent in most American team sports that the jerseys are the only untouched elements. And sponsorships already dominate jerseys in European sports leagues, NASCAR and major league soccer.

This arrangement—and Stern’s implicit endorsement—implies that more pacts like this are in the works. Above all, this suggests that the league may well survive the recession. The economy has had an enormous impact on sports already. Witness the empty seats at Yankee Stadium, the fact that NBA powers such as the Boston Celtics and L.A. Lakers both dumped salaries at the trade deadline to reduce their luxury tax liability. The WNBA has been hurt, too; the Houston Comets, one of the league’s premiere franchises, winner of the first four WNBA titles, folded in December.

If you were an NBA fan and suddenly the Lakers folded up shop, you’d worry about the health of the league, too.

The WNBA enters this season with short-term economic obstacles to overcome, and the league is still recovering from its haphazard introduction. When the WNBA began in 1997, it was introduced as a major league, which it is, and a major sport, which it isn’t. There isn’t any shame in being on a tier below the NFL and NCAA football and the NBA; most golf and tennis tournaments are on the same tier, right along with figure skating and soccer.