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Adidas Article in WSJ - mentions UM
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-adidas-aims-to-get-its-cool-back-1427072066
How Adidas Aims to Get Its Cool Back
By ELLEN EMMERENTZE JERVELL and SARA GERMANO
Adidas AG notched a big win when it signed a deal in January to sponsor University of Miami sports. The school had been rival Nike Inc.’s turf for decades, a perfect place to show that Adidas’s new U.S. chief was breaking its long slump in America.
But many fans of “The U” balked, starting anti-Adidas chatter on social media. Miami’s coaches seemed excited, says Mark King, Adidas’s new North America president. “But at the kid level,” he says of students, “they’re like, ‘Why would you sign with Adidas?’ ”
That’s been a recurring question about Adidas in America, and it speaks to the hurdles facing the world’s second-biggest sports brand as it tries to regain footing in the biggest sports market.
Mr. King’s challenge, simply put: Adidas isn’t cool in America, and cool is what sells sports gear. At stake are huge U.S. sales—and the hearts of sports fans globally, who increasingly take their cues from American pop culture. U.S. sports apparel and footwear wholesale revenues were $51.6 billion in 2013, 43% of global sales, estimates industry tracker Sporting Goods Intelligence.
“The U.S. is 40% of the world’s sneaker market and 100% of the world’s sneaker culture,” says Matt Powell, a sporting-goods-industry analyst. “To win the world, you need to win the U.S.”
Adidas was dominant in the U.S. sports-shoe market in the 1970s; its retail market share was about 7% in 2014, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo. For Mr. King’s boss, Adidas Chief Executive Herbert Hainer, the failure to reverse the German company’s U.S. market-share slide is a big blemish on his 14 largely successful years running the brand.
Adidas’s share price more than quadrupled from 2002 through 2013. In March 2014, the company extended Mr. Hainer’s contract to 2017. Then results soured. Adidas’s stock fell 38% to €57.6 last year, recovering to about €70 ($76) last week ahead of a five-year-strategy launch this week. Adidas reported 2014 net income of €490 million, down 38% from 2013, on sales of €14.5 billion, up 2%.
An acute problem last year was turmoil in Russia, a big Adidas market. But a deeper woe is the U.S., where sales have fallen since 2012. Adidas reported 2014 North American sales of €2.97 billion, down 7% from 2013. Nike posted $12.3 billion in fiscal 2014 North America sales, up 10% from 2013. Some investors are questioning Mr. Hainer’s leadership.
Off-mark in America
The 60-year-old Mr. Hainer, known for his analytical approach, has lifted Adidas’s market share over much of the globe. Much of his success traces to a centralized strategy of dominating soccer markets with the brand.
But his approach hasn’t fixed a problem that predated his ascension: Adidas has often been off-mark among American shoppers, whose sports-gear tastes can shift unpredictably and whose spending is swayed by sports other than soccer.
U.S.-based Nike long ago outpaced Adidas in American sales and is gaining in Western Europe, Adidas’s home turf. Last year, Adidas fell to No. 3 in the U.S. behind Under Armour Inc. in retail sales of sports apparel and footwear, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo.
“When Herbert took over, America was a problem,” says Christophe Bezu, former head of Adidas Asia Pacific, who left in 2011 after almost 24 years with the company. “America has always been a problem, and despite serious efforts nobody has been able to fix it.”
Mr. Hainer declines to be interviewed. In a financial presentation this month, he said Adidas “underperformed in North America and we are all disappointed.”
Mr. Hainer wants to reboot in the U.S. with Mr. King, an Adidas-group veteran who took over North American operations last June. Mr. King, an American, says headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, has given him more leeway than to predecessors to craft a U.S.-specific strategy.
America is “a very different mind-set from Germany,” Mr. King says. “That’s really the epiphany.”
Branding and product creation for most products sold in America will originate in the U.S. for the first time, Mr. King says. Last year, he announced plans to hire three Nike shoe designers for a new Brooklyn, N.Y., studio—Adidas’s first American design outpost outside U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore.
Mr. King in December signed a sponsorship with Arizona State University, a Nike school. He persuaded headquarters to let him sponsor up to 500 National Football League and Major League Baseball players over the next few years, up from the few dozen Adidas sponsors today. “I know we’re a soccer brand globally,” he says, “but in the U.S. we have to be about U.S. sport.”
Some retailers are skeptical Adidas has changed its stripes. Christine Noh, who runs Nohble, a New York area chain of street-wear stores, says she has cut back Adidas allotments. Its representatives aren’t as attentive as rivals to her input on what shoes will resonate with consumers, she says, and Adidas tends to flood the market when it has a hit, depressing prices.
“If your upper management is in Germany, and they don’t know Flatbush from Harlem from Virginia,” she says, “it’s hard to have that information percolate back up to the top and have that action executed.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says: “We listen to retailers and consumers every day and make our business decisions based on that collective insight.” She says Adidas has recently reorganized its sales teams to have dedicated reps for its Adidas and Reebok brands.
Founded by German athlete and shoemaker Adolf Dassler in 1949, Adidas turned sneakers into mainstream-fashion items. Its three-striped shoes were everywhere in America in the 1970s. Industry veteran John Horan, Sporting Goods Intelligence’s publisher, estimates Adidas had the majority U.S. sports-footwear market share at the time.
Michael Jordan miss
In 1984, Adidas made a misstep that presaged others. A University of North Carolina basketball star named Michael Jordan wanted a sponsorship deal with Adidas when he went professional, say people familiar with the matter.
Adidas distributors wanted to sign Mr. Jordan, says someone who was an Adidas distributor then. But executives in Germany decided shoppers would favor taller players and wanted to sponsor centers, the person says, adding: “We kept saying, ‘no—no one can relate to those guys. Who can associate with a seven-foot-tall guy?’ ”
Adidas signed centers of the era, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—it still sells sneakers named for him. Mr. Jordan in 1984 signed with Nike, which built his name into a blockbuster basketball business. Mr. Jordan and Adidas decline to comment.
Tensions between Adidas’s people on the ground in America and in Herzogenaurach would continue for decades, say company veterans. “The Americans always asked to be allowed to do what they wanted,” says Mr. Bezu, the former Adidas executive, while headquarters was “maybe a bit too dogmatic.”
An Adidas spokeswoman says each U.S. leader “had a long and successful track record.”
Adidas got a pop-culture boost in 1986 when hip-hop group Run-DMC released ‘My Adidas,’ a song lauding the rap world’s favorite shoes. But the boost diverted Adidas from its sports markets, hurting business when the trend waned, say former executives and distributors.
The spokeswoman says Adidas is “first and foremost” a sports brand but says its fusion of sports and lifestyle is a unique attribute.
Herbert Hainer, 60, has been Adidas’s CEO since 2001. The Bavarian native, known for his analytical approach, is under investor pressure to improve results. By the 1990s, Nike was gaining as its swoosh adorned a broad range of stars, from Olympian Carl Lewis to tennis champ Andre Agassi. It began designing an annual signature shoe for Mr. Jordan, driving consumers to buy again and again.
When Mr. Hainer ascended in 2001, Adidas’s market share was rising globally but falling in the U.S. He became known as a disciplined CEO who focused on spreadsheets, several Adidas executives say.
Erich Joachimsthaler, a business consultant who has worked with Adidas, says Mr. Hainer’s analytical, long-term view has helped walk “a fine line between stability and responding to the latest fashion trends.” Running almost 54,000 employees in 160 countries, “you need strategic planning and an approach like Hainer’s.”
Some former Adidas executives say that analytical style could sometimes keep German headquarters out of touch with U.S. consumers.
During Mr. Hainer’s tenure, Adidas had four U.S. bosses before Mr. King. In 2005, Adidas’s U.S. retail market share had fallen to about 10% in sports shoes, says industry researcher SportsOneSource, versus Nike’s roughly 35% and Reebok’s 8%.
That year, Mr. Hainer agreed to buy Reebok for roughly $3.8 billion. In 2006, he signed a deal, estimated at $400 million, to supply the National Basketball Association’s jerseys—rights previously belonging to Reebok—through 2017.
Mr. Hainer boasted Adidas was gaining on Nike, telling a German newspaper that year: “They feel us breathing down their back.”
The Reebok deal surprised top staff in America, say former U.S. executives. “From the moment we started looking at the numbers, we knew it was a screwed-up business and that we’d paid too much,” says a former Adidas executive involved in handling the aftermath.
Efforts to fix Reebok diverted resources from the Adidas brand, say several former executives.
The Adidas spokeswoman says that “like all deals of this size, only a small amount of people worked on the preparation,” adding that Reebok “was not at its top when we acquired it, but we believed and firmly believe in the long-term growth potential of the brand.”
Having the NBA logo deal didn’t stop the long-term market-share slide. American shoppers tend to choose shoes based on what stars wear, not on what a team wears. Adidas did sign some stars, such as Kobe Bryant. But Nike was particularly adept at landing top current-talent endorsements and had a deep vault of signature shoes for former stars it could reintroduce. Nike now has more than 90% of the U.S. basketball-shoe retail market, SportsOneSource says.
Hainer’s five-year plan
In 2010, Mr. Hainer unveiled a five-year plan to make Adidas “the leading sports brand in the world,” projecting sales growth of more than 45%. One target was “underpenetrated markets such as the United States.”
The plan called for winning U.S. share by converting Reebok—a sports brand—into a fitness brand. Adidas also set aggressive targets in American basketball shoes, says Robert “Cape” Capener, who ran Adidas’s U.S. basketball division then. His division hit its goals in the first few years, but momentum slowed and executives lost enthusiasm, he says. He says Adidas has “very strong assets, very strong athletes, very smart people” but needs “to fix what’s happening in the U.S.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says it hit North America targets from 2010 through 2012.
Meanwhile, the U.S. market was shifting toward “athleisure,” in which workout clothes became everyday wear. Companies like Lululemon Athletica Inc. made pricey yoga pants desirable, and niche sportswear competitors began filling retailers’ racks.
And Adidas faced new competition in Skechers USA Inc., which has became the No. 4 sports-footwear brand, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo.
Last year, Patrik Nilsson, then Adidas’s North America chief, invited CEOs from three U.S. sports retailers to Germany to convey shoppers’ tastes, say people familiar with the trip. Among their messages: Make more product variations, more quickly. Adidas’s product cycle—from drawing board to market—is about 18 months.
Ken Hicks, who retired as Foot Locker Inc.’s CEO in December and was on the trip, says Adidas managers “were successful and they took their eye off the ball a bit and didn’t keep the next generation coming.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says Mr. Hainer “has a longstanding personal relationship with all our major retail partners.”
Adidas has had notable successes like its ZX Flux and Boost shoes and in signing young guards like Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard. Reebok is showing signs of growth.
Adidas this week said it won’t renew its NBA contract and will instead focus on youth basketball, developing new products and doubling its NBA-player roster.
Mr. King says Adidas is working to shorten product cycles to no more than six months. This year, it introduced a much-anticipated sneaker, the Yeezy Boost, designed with rapper Kanye West. The initial run sold out.
Adidas plans to bring more American flavor to products, Mr. King says. “We have so many assets that nobody knows about, and if we could tell those stories in a much better, U.S.-centric way, this brand in a very short time could definitely change its cool factor.”
How Adidas Aims to Get Its Cool Back
By ELLEN EMMERENTZE JERVELL and SARA GERMANO
Adidas AG notched a big win when it signed a deal in January to sponsor University of Miami sports. The school had been rival Nike Inc.’s turf for decades, a perfect place to show that Adidas’s new U.S. chief was breaking its long slump in America.
But many fans of “The U” balked, starting anti-Adidas chatter on social media. Miami’s coaches seemed excited, says Mark King, Adidas’s new North America president. “But at the kid level,” he says of students, “they’re like, ‘Why would you sign with Adidas?’ ”
That’s been a recurring question about Adidas in America, and it speaks to the hurdles facing the world’s second-biggest sports brand as it tries to regain footing in the biggest sports market.
Mr. King’s challenge, simply put: Adidas isn’t cool in America, and cool is what sells sports gear. At stake are huge U.S. sales—and the hearts of sports fans globally, who increasingly take their cues from American pop culture. U.S. sports apparel and footwear wholesale revenues were $51.6 billion in 2013, 43% of global sales, estimates industry tracker Sporting Goods Intelligence.
“The U.S. is 40% of the world’s sneaker market and 100% of the world’s sneaker culture,” says Matt Powell, a sporting-goods-industry analyst. “To win the world, you need to win the U.S.”
Adidas was dominant in the U.S. sports-shoe market in the 1970s; its retail market share was about 7% in 2014, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo. For Mr. King’s boss, Adidas Chief Executive Herbert Hainer, the failure to reverse the German company’s U.S. market-share slide is a big blemish on his 14 largely successful years running the brand.
Adidas’s share price more than quadrupled from 2002 through 2013. In March 2014, the company extended Mr. Hainer’s contract to 2017. Then results soured. Adidas’s stock fell 38% to €57.6 last year, recovering to about €70 ($76) last week ahead of a five-year-strategy launch this week. Adidas reported 2014 net income of €490 million, down 38% from 2013, on sales of €14.5 billion, up 2%.
An acute problem last year was turmoil in Russia, a big Adidas market. But a deeper woe is the U.S., where sales have fallen since 2012. Adidas reported 2014 North American sales of €2.97 billion, down 7% from 2013. Nike posted $12.3 billion in fiscal 2014 North America sales, up 10% from 2013. Some investors are questioning Mr. Hainer’s leadership.
Off-mark in America
The 60-year-old Mr. Hainer, known for his analytical approach, has lifted Adidas’s market share over much of the globe. Much of his success traces to a centralized strategy of dominating soccer markets with the brand.
But his approach hasn’t fixed a problem that predated his ascension: Adidas has often been off-mark among American shoppers, whose sports-gear tastes can shift unpredictably and whose spending is swayed by sports other than soccer.
U.S.-based Nike long ago outpaced Adidas in American sales and is gaining in Western Europe, Adidas’s home turf. Last year, Adidas fell to No. 3 in the U.S. behind Under Armour Inc. in retail sales of sports apparel and footwear, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo.
“When Herbert took over, America was a problem,” says Christophe Bezu, former head of Adidas Asia Pacific, who left in 2011 after almost 24 years with the company. “America has always been a problem, and despite serious efforts nobody has been able to fix it.”
Mr. Hainer declines to be interviewed. In a financial presentation this month, he said Adidas “underperformed in North America and we are all disappointed.”
Mr. Hainer wants to reboot in the U.S. with Mr. King, an Adidas-group veteran who took over North American operations last June. Mr. King, an American, says headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, has given him more leeway than to predecessors to craft a U.S.-specific strategy.
America is “a very different mind-set from Germany,” Mr. King says. “That’s really the epiphany.”
Branding and product creation for most products sold in America will originate in the U.S. for the first time, Mr. King says. Last year, he announced plans to hire three Nike shoe designers for a new Brooklyn, N.Y., studio—Adidas’s first American design outpost outside U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore.
Mr. King in December signed a sponsorship with Arizona State University, a Nike school. He persuaded headquarters to let him sponsor up to 500 National Football League and Major League Baseball players over the next few years, up from the few dozen Adidas sponsors today. “I know we’re a soccer brand globally,” he says, “but in the U.S. we have to be about U.S. sport.”
Some retailers are skeptical Adidas has changed its stripes. Christine Noh, who runs Nohble, a New York area chain of street-wear stores, says she has cut back Adidas allotments. Its representatives aren’t as attentive as rivals to her input on what shoes will resonate with consumers, she says, and Adidas tends to flood the market when it has a hit, depressing prices.
“If your upper management is in Germany, and they don’t know Flatbush from Harlem from Virginia,” she says, “it’s hard to have that information percolate back up to the top and have that action executed.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says: “We listen to retailers and consumers every day and make our business decisions based on that collective insight.” She says Adidas has recently reorganized its sales teams to have dedicated reps for its Adidas and Reebok brands.
Founded by German athlete and shoemaker Adolf Dassler in 1949, Adidas turned sneakers into mainstream-fashion items. Its three-striped shoes were everywhere in America in the 1970s. Industry veteran John Horan, Sporting Goods Intelligence’s publisher, estimates Adidas had the majority U.S. sports-footwear market share at the time.
Michael Jordan miss
In 1984, Adidas made a misstep that presaged others. A University of North Carolina basketball star named Michael Jordan wanted a sponsorship deal with Adidas when he went professional, say people familiar with the matter.
Adidas distributors wanted to sign Mr. Jordan, says someone who was an Adidas distributor then. But executives in Germany decided shoppers would favor taller players and wanted to sponsor centers, the person says, adding: “We kept saying, ‘no—no one can relate to those guys. Who can associate with a seven-foot-tall guy?’ ”
Adidas signed centers of the era, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—it still sells sneakers named for him. Mr. Jordan in 1984 signed with Nike, which built his name into a blockbuster basketball business. Mr. Jordan and Adidas decline to comment.
Tensions between Adidas’s people on the ground in America and in Herzogenaurach would continue for decades, say company veterans. “The Americans always asked to be allowed to do what they wanted,” says Mr. Bezu, the former Adidas executive, while headquarters was “maybe a bit too dogmatic.”
An Adidas spokeswoman says each U.S. leader “had a long and successful track record.”
Adidas got a pop-culture boost in 1986 when hip-hop group Run-DMC released ‘My Adidas,’ a song lauding the rap world’s favorite shoes. But the boost diverted Adidas from its sports markets, hurting business when the trend waned, say former executives and distributors.
The spokeswoman says Adidas is “first and foremost” a sports brand but says its fusion of sports and lifestyle is a unique attribute.
Herbert Hainer, 60, has been Adidas’s CEO since 2001. The Bavarian native, known for his analytical approach, is under investor pressure to improve results. By the 1990s, Nike was gaining as its swoosh adorned a broad range of stars, from Olympian Carl Lewis to tennis champ Andre Agassi. It began designing an annual signature shoe for Mr. Jordan, driving consumers to buy again and again.
When Mr. Hainer ascended in 2001, Adidas’s market share was rising globally but falling in the U.S. He became known as a disciplined CEO who focused on spreadsheets, several Adidas executives say.
Erich Joachimsthaler, a business consultant who has worked with Adidas, says Mr. Hainer’s analytical, long-term view has helped walk “a fine line between stability and responding to the latest fashion trends.” Running almost 54,000 employees in 160 countries, “you need strategic planning and an approach like Hainer’s.”
Some former Adidas executives say that analytical style could sometimes keep German headquarters out of touch with U.S. consumers.
During Mr. Hainer’s tenure, Adidas had four U.S. bosses before Mr. King. In 2005, Adidas’s U.S. retail market share had fallen to about 10% in sports shoes, says industry researcher SportsOneSource, versus Nike’s roughly 35% and Reebok’s 8%.
That year, Mr. Hainer agreed to buy Reebok for roughly $3.8 billion. In 2006, he signed a deal, estimated at $400 million, to supply the National Basketball Association’s jerseys—rights previously belonging to Reebok—through 2017.
Mr. Hainer boasted Adidas was gaining on Nike, telling a German newspaper that year: “They feel us breathing down their back.”
The Reebok deal surprised top staff in America, say former U.S. executives. “From the moment we started looking at the numbers, we knew it was a screwed-up business and that we’d paid too much,” says a former Adidas executive involved in handling the aftermath.
Efforts to fix Reebok diverted resources from the Adidas brand, say several former executives.
The Adidas spokeswoman says that “like all deals of this size, only a small amount of people worked on the preparation,” adding that Reebok “was not at its top when we acquired it, but we believed and firmly believe in the long-term growth potential of the brand.”
Having the NBA logo deal didn’t stop the long-term market-share slide. American shoppers tend to choose shoes based on what stars wear, not on what a team wears. Adidas did sign some stars, such as Kobe Bryant. But Nike was particularly adept at landing top current-talent endorsements and had a deep vault of signature shoes for former stars it could reintroduce. Nike now has more than 90% of the U.S. basketball-shoe retail market, SportsOneSource says.
Hainer’s five-year plan
In 2010, Mr. Hainer unveiled a five-year plan to make Adidas “the leading sports brand in the world,” projecting sales growth of more than 45%. One target was “underpenetrated markets such as the United States.”
The plan called for winning U.S. share by converting Reebok—a sports brand—into a fitness brand. Adidas also set aggressive targets in American basketball shoes, says Robert “Cape” Capener, who ran Adidas’s U.S. basketball division then. His division hit its goals in the first few years, but momentum slowed and executives lost enthusiasm, he says. He says Adidas has “very strong assets, very strong athletes, very smart people” but needs “to fix what’s happening in the U.S.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says it hit North America targets from 2010 through 2012.
Meanwhile, the U.S. market was shifting toward “athleisure,” in which workout clothes became everyday wear. Companies like Lululemon Athletica Inc. made pricey yoga pants desirable, and niche sportswear competitors began filling retailers’ racks.
And Adidas faced new competition in Skechers USA Inc., which has became the No. 4 sports-footwear brand, according to Sterne Agee and SportScanInfo.
Last year, Patrik Nilsson, then Adidas’s North America chief, invited CEOs from three U.S. sports retailers to Germany to convey shoppers’ tastes, say people familiar with the trip. Among their messages: Make more product variations, more quickly. Adidas’s product cycle—from drawing board to market—is about 18 months.
Ken Hicks, who retired as Foot Locker Inc.’s CEO in December and was on the trip, says Adidas managers “were successful and they took their eye off the ball a bit and didn’t keep the next generation coming.”
The Adidas spokeswoman says Mr. Hainer “has a longstanding personal relationship with all our major retail partners.”
Adidas has had notable successes like its ZX Flux and Boost shoes and in signing young guards like Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard. Reebok is showing signs of growth.
Adidas this week said it won’t renew its NBA contract and will instead focus on youth basketball, developing new products and doubling its NBA-player roster.
Mr. King says Adidas is working to shorten product cycles to no more than six months. This year, it introduced a much-anticipated sneaker, the Yeezy Boost, designed with rapper Kanye West. The initial run sold out.
Adidas plans to bring more American flavor to products, Mr. King says. “We have so many assets that nobody knows about, and if we could tell those stories in a much better, U.S.-centric way, this brand in a very short time could definitely change its cool factor.”
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Adidas is no longer sponsoring the NBA b/c it lost major money in that deal. While the logo on the NBA jersey was supposed to spark an increase in sponsorships among top players, it did anything but that. Nike sales increased, along w/ UA...and now Adidas is playing 3rd fiddle to Nike and UA. Now, their top creative artist are being sued by Nike for product infrigements, so look for a couple of design patterns for athletics to be taken away from them. Still say it was a very bad deal on Miami's part. The back-end revenue will not be there. But it is what it is.
I completely disagree with you on this.
Front-end money is better ... Fact.
Back-end money ... Remains to be seen.
I don't think the apparel logo will be an issue, at all.
We continue to suck? That will be an issue for back-end sales. But if we get things right on the field, the sales will come ... And nobody will care we're in Adidas.
I'll bet you Michigan gets a positive spike in apparel sales this coming season. The reason isn't because their fans like Adidas more than they use to ... It's because they like Harbaugh more than Hoke, and they have some faith in where he can take them.
Also ... Check the history. Nike originally wanted UM because UM was cool. That means The U brand was valuable BEFORE the Nike connection. It ain't about the swoosh ... Never was. Nike didn't make Jordan ... Jordan made Nike.
Canes win, Canes will make Adidas a bigger player in the market. When that happens ... Guess what the next contract looks like???
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The front end money is no doubt better, believe that. I totally agree w/ you on there...but you can't compare Adidas sales to Nike sales. Give you an example; the moment that Kobe switched from Adidas to Nikes, his endorsement earnings grew 1000%...he was still the same popular player as before but the switch increased his money astronomically. Another example; when the NFL switched sponsorship from Adidas to Nike, IMMEDIATELY their sales volume increased 500%.
To your point, Nike did want to align themselves with UM b/c we were cool...and bet money, that if we were still cool, they would've paid us handsomely. The fact is, we're not the same U. 6-7, losing 11 of the last 19 and a combined record of 56-44 over the last 8 years translated to Nike low balling u. So now a 3rd fiddle company, who is also desparate to save is image, over paid for us. Adidas is fledgling; the fact that a small start up company like UA who's only been in the game for about a decade is now No. 2 in the athletic industry shows where Adidas is as a brand.
No doubt, the U is still a popular brand, and if we start winning, recruits will come here regardless of who are sponsor is and Adidas is rolling the dice on that. But as I've mentioned before, this switch shows we are as a football program right now.
You can agree to disagree, but there's a reason why since 1987 (when schools started the trend after us of obtaining exclusive sponsorships) 26 of the last 29 national champions were sponsored by Nike. Adidas hasn't had school hold up the National title since 1998 with Tennessee. ****, even UA has had a national championship sponsored school in the last 5 yrs. Just saying, bruh.
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Because Nike has a better business model than Adidas.
But teams didn't win BECAUSE of Nike ... There is ZERO correlation between who sponsors them, and who wins.
No debate from me, Nike is the better company ... The better brand in the US. And Adidas overpaying us is EXACTLY why it's a good deal for us.
Maybe you can get access to the numbers?
I'd be curious to know about the merchandise sales for the previous 5 years, and how they will compare over the next 5 ... Because either, (though HIGHLY unlikely) Golden figures it out and makes the team competitive, or (more likely) he's fired and we get a boost from a new coaching staff. In either case, there will be renewed interest in the program over the next few seasons, IMO ...
BTW ... I appreciate your insight on the topic. You seem to be all over it.
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No doubt, bro. To be honest, I'm not one of those sneaker heads or anything...I was given a second chance at life, went to school and majored in business marketing; it also happens that one of my frat bros works for Nike in their marketing dept so we talk a lot about numbers in general and he's equally a huge Miami Hurricane fan as I am so he kinda gave me a heads up on what was going down.
Nike feels that they don't need to overpay for certain products b/c they trust their business model, as you alluded to, and feel the back end revenue will suffice for anyone or anything they endorse (which it normally does).
I have no quarrels with us signing w/ Adidas in the sense of something fresh or new coming to the team...but I do know for a fact that if Miami's brass cared half as much about the football program as we do, there was no way in **** Nike was going to let us go like they did. They would've put up a fight and they didn't even blink at letting us walk.
While the per year still wouldn't have been as much as what Adidas were offering us, they would've made the same pitch to us for about 5-6m/yr like FSU got. While they respected the tradition of us pioneering the exclusive endorsement deals, they offered us a minimal b/c the mystique of the U was no longer there.
The creation of the new jerseys were first brought to us and it was a sign of good faith based upon our 9-4 record from the previous year and we came into the 2014-15 season with so much hype. Everyone thought the U was coming back and then we went 6-7 and they felt we didn't deserve 5-6m a year...more less 2.1-2.2m a year, and tbh, if we didn't have history with them, it would've been more like 1.6-1.8m per year. That's why when we decided to leave, there was no fight back on their parts.
To me, whoever sponsors us makes me no mind. Just freggin win already. We had Russell sponsor us, Starter, it didn't matter, we won. However, the fact that we were essentially dropped by the biggest athletic brand was a reality check for me as to the state of Miami football. It's a representation of how successful (or lack thereof) this football program has been lately. I'm hoping the dice roll for Adidas comes to full fruition, but I truly don't feel it will happen under this regime, unfortunately.
mirednmediocrity2
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Adidas is making a big risk with Miami football. Nothing tells me this program will be worth a final **** anytime soon.
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cowboycane
All-ACC
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If only the games were played in workout clothes. We would never lose.
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Who you are sponsored by doesn't affect how good your team is. So talking about national championships in football is completely pointless.
You say this switch shows where we are as a football program, but I'm not seeing why this switch is bad (assuming the Uni's will be on the same level of what Nike gave us this year OR better). I'm pretty sure even if we were doing well, Adidas would have offered more money than Nike. Nike doesn't want to pay a school more, because then other schools will start asking for more.
Also, you can easily make the argument that this shows our program is still incredibly valuable, even when it is at the worst its been since like 1996. The reason being Adidas spent a lot of money on us, and is putting a lot of faith that being our apparel sponsor will really make an impact on their sales in the US, especially in Florida.
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Sponsorship does matter. You have to remember we live in a pop culture world, now. Kids love themselves some Nikes and Jordans. Some recruits have been quoted as dropping teams from their list due to what sponsor that school had a relationship with. Walking around town in free gear is a big plus. It's the idea that one product is superior than the other, even though that may not be the case.
For instance, had Adidas signed Michael Jordan instead of Nike, Adidas would be number and Nike number whatever as we speak. Jordan was cool, refreshing, charismatic, and more importantly, a winner. Nike took off, when Jordan took off b/c the feel was that Nike aligns themselves with winners and winners only. So that's the image it's created; and by that image, you see mostly Nike sponsored teams in the winner's circle. That's not a co-incidence.
My point that getting dropped from a "winning brand" signifies where we are at. If we were still winning, Nike would've ponied up on their offer.
Adidas overpays b/c it has too...it has to roll the dice to get back going. UA came in and they stomped them out. The biggest show cases are the Nike Opening and UA All-Star games, so yes, who a team is sponsored by does make an impression on kids when that's what is show cased to them. Perception is 99% reality for a lot of people.
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You must be talking about Basketball, because that is literally the only time it has any effect on where a recruit would go. And it's not like we are a top basketball school anyway, where we are getting top 100 prospects. If Adidas ends up having good designs, it will all be great. ****, they don't even have to do much, they just literally have to not **** with our helmet, and it'll all be pretty good.
IMO, the design is all that really matters, and when one company is willing to pay you 3-4x as much as another, it just makes the deal that much better.
Of course I like Nike better, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have switched to Adidas. Someone who wouldn't come to a school because they are sponsored by Adidas instead of Nike (especially if the uni's were still nice) is an absolute idiot. Choosing where to go to college is so much more important than whether you have a swoosh or 3 stripes.
Based on the above assumption Adidas is banking on UM apparel sales to explode in the future then Adidas and Stephen Ross should go in for 2/3rd of the cost for an indoor Practice Facility for Miami. Ross will benefit from increased attendance numbers because miami will be winning more games on the field. Since a IPF will help improve Miami's performance on the field by eliminating cancelled practices and also the facilities appeal to recruits an thus improve Miami's performance as a whole. Not to mention UM will be the only Florida Power School without one (FSU, UF, & UCF all have one. Not to mention almost 2/3rd's of the ACC and All the SEC schools).
Here is an article on the 8 best IPF in country, you will notice the usual suspects listed except for Miami.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2395191-8-best-indoor-facilities-in-college-football
They could call the donation from Adidas to UM a naming rights fee for the IPF (for the duration of the UM apparel deal), and the donation from Stephen Ross a donation to the football team and university. Then the University only needs to come with matching funds for the IPF which in total would probably cost roughly $20 million, so Miami's portion would be in the $6-$7 million dollar range. It could be called the Ross Adi-Dassler (founded Adidas) Center or The RAD Center.
Go Canes
Here is an article on the 8 best IPF in country, you will notice the usual suspects listed except for Miami.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2395191-8-best-indoor-facilities-in-college-football
They could call the donation from Adidas to UM a naming rights fee for the IPF (for the duration of the UM apparel deal), and the donation from Stephen Ross a donation to the football team and university. Then the University only needs to come with matching funds for the IPF which in total would probably cost roughly $20 million, so Miami's portion would be in the $6-$7 million dollar range. It could be called the Ross Adi-Dassler (founded Adidas) Center or The RAD Center.
Go Canes
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I wholeheartedly agree w/ you.
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Bro, you have no argument from me here based upon your response...however, everyone doesn't see it that way. Did you see how twitter blew up after it was announced we were leaving Nike for Adidas? Did you see how many were up in arms b/c of the move? It's b/c of the idea of Nike.
When you see winning teams or players, majority are repped by Nike...we can agree on that, right? So the fact that we were thee 1st school to be approached by Nike, b/c Nike's mantra is that they associate w/ only with the best of the best (for the most part), it said we arrived as a program. Nike didn't approach Bama, USC, FSU, or ND...they approached us. Why? B/c we were that team! Now that they were willing to leave us, shows where we are at currently. That's my point.
You don't think sponsorship have an influence? Just see merchandise sales. ****, Tennessee, a long time affiliate of Adidas is leaving them for Nike just to boost recruiting a little further. Adidas offered more, but Tennessee is trying to take their football program to a new level and they felt the swoosh would help that image.
I'm just saying man...you can disagree all you want, but marketing plays a role in young, influential kids. I'm not saying that is always the case...of course winning has a lot to do w/ it, but I can recall when I would be at USC (the real one) and see young pups come on campus for the tour and they saw that Nike store on campus, they would be stupid juiced. Of Course a winning tradition is the main cause, but sponsorship helps in some ways as well. It's all about marketing. Adidas marketing us is going to be great, b/c Nike stopped marketing us for like the last 7 yrs...but we can agree we gotta win, too, for it to come to full fruition.
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