Originally from The Miami Hurricane

Miami athletics has returned to Nike as the program’s apparel sponsor, agreeing to a lucrative 10-year contract worth more than $200 million.

Nike was the apparel sponsor of the Hurricanes from 1987-2015, before the University made an unprecedented decision to sign with Adidas.

Now, Miami is back wearing the iconic swoosh.

Miami found themselves in a strong negotiating position following its national championship appearance, also coming off the footsteps of other premier programs signing apparel deals.

Adidas put pen to paper with Penn State on July 1, in a 10-year, $300 million dollar deal, and agreed to a 10-year, $100 million deal with the University of Tennessee the next day.

With the bar set high, UM went into negotiations with the upper hand and found that Adidas was unwilling to match Nike’s offer according to reports.

The deal marks a role reversal from when Miami was last in apparel negotiations 12 years ago. Nike was unwilling to match Adidas’ offer in 2015, leading to the longstanding Adidas partnership the University had until now.

The offer reportedly puts Miami as the second-highest collegiate investment from Nike, just behind Oregon, where the apparel giant was founded.

UM was in the midst of a 12-year deal partnership with Adidas, set to expire in 2027. The agreement was the longest-standing collegiate partnership in Adidas history — also the first all-sport apparel partnership the company had with a top program.

Adidas had spent the last decade investing in South Florida sports, from high school all the way to Universities.

South Florida talents such as Malachi Toney, Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Miami recruits A’mir Sears and Nick Lennear all signed with the three stripes within the last year.

In 2025, Adidas signed a five-year, $13.5 million deal to outfit all 41 of Miami-Dade County High Schools’ athletics uniforms, cementing itself as the leading athletic apparel company in the greater Miami area.

But while UM and Adidas have been great partners for more than a decade, UM and Nike have historic ties.

Miami’s original partnership with Nike marked the first all-sports apparel contract in collegiate history, and continued for four of UM’s national titles in football (1987, 1989, 1999, 2001) and two in baseball (1999, 2001).

The Hurricanes join South Carolina as Power Four programs to sign with Nike in the past year, with the decision set to take effect when Adidas’ deal expires next July ahead of the 2027 athletic season.

 

I’m guessing you’re one year older than me. I’m too old to fight in real life, but I’m a BAMF online. Handsome too.

You just like me!

 

Pretty sure we were a Russell Athletic team during our initial dominant period. The classic Miami look days. Nike came later with the first ever big deal.

 

So b4 I post my thorough breakdown, here’s On3’s take:



OK, why is this a good thing for us? Obviously, the $$$ is important, but the notoriety and recruiting implications may be even bigger.

Oh—and I forgot to mention this earlier: remember those “upgraded” Adidas uniforms we’ve been getting? High school teams have them, too!! I literally blew a gasket standing on the field and seeing D1/P4-level uniforms being worn by high school kids. Wild.

Now, back to the point.

I’ve been warning for a while that Nike is positioning itself to become the premier NIL brand, and that was going to increasingly impact recruiting. Adidas athletes have already been going to Nike schools, while virtually every Nike NIL athlete has been landing at Nike schools. The lone major exception I’ve seen is Tyran Stokes going to Kansas.

Miami returning to Nike changes that equation.

1. Recruiting:​

This immediately opens the door to the elite Nike high schools—Mater Dei, East St. Louis, DeSoto, St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita, etc.

And this isn't just football -

It creates a major recruiting avenue for basketball because EYBL is, by far, the most influential AAU circuit in the country. The overwhelming majority of elite basketball prospects come through that circuit, and it’s Nike. Most of those players ultimately gravitate toward Nike/Jordan schools, with a handful going to traditional Adidas blue bloods.

Now Miami is back in that ecosystem.

2. The NIL Difference:​

This is probably the biggest part. Nike’s NIL infrastructure is on another level compared with Adidas and Under Armour. I’m not talking about a few commercials and free gear.

I personally know three current high-school Nike NIL athletes—one of them extremely well—and Nike gave all three their own shoe to design, customize and sell through Nike.com. All three sold out immediately, and the athletes received a portion of the profits.

Now imagine Miami being an official Nike Blue Ribbon program alongside schools such as South Carolina, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, USC, Oregon and Clemson.

That creates opportunities for our athletes to develop exclusive NIL relationships with Nike that can potentially extend into their professional careers, although obviously the terms and compensation change once they turn pro.

And for the record, this has nothing to do with Toney’s /// deal. That's separate, although his agreement may be year-to-year.

Guys like Sears and Lennear—and I was just with Lennear’s teammate last Friday—have Adidas NIL agreements that are strictly for high school. Once they reach college, they can renew, switch, or pursue something completely different. Think Chris Henry Jr.

3. The Miami Brand:​

This deal also means:
• More NIL opportunities
• Better recruiting access
• Better fan gear—both quantity AND quality
• A much stronger shoe/cleat presence
• Greater exposure through Nike/Jordan’s South Florida network
• And, yes, Nike will be redoing the IPF

With the number of South Florida influencers connected to Nike and Jordan Brand, our footwear presence could eventually start looking more like Oregon.

4. Nike's Elite Football Schools:​

In no particular order—and excluding Jordan Brand schools—I'd expect Nike's core priorities to include:
• Miami
• LSU
• Alabama
• Clemson
• Tennessee
• Ohio State
• Florida State
• Auburn
• South Carolina
• Oregon
• USC
• Kentucky

And PSU made this decision pretty easy for Nike.

Nike wasn't particularly concerned about Tennessee leaving. Penn State hurt. It's the first time I've seen Nike put out a farewell tweet like that for a school outside of the Tiger Woods situation—and Nike still refuses to rename his building!

Nike's original “Core 4” were Penn State, Miami, USC and Florida State.

-FSU got paid.

-USC got paid.

-PSU prematurely jumped ship because their AD was heavily Adidas-oriented.

At that point, I figured Miami was eventually coming home.

That's why I started chirping about it, until a certain poster confused my intel/corrections with me being a fanboy. So I backed off.

And I'll admit it: for a minute, it looked like I might be wrong. I fully expected us to re-sign with Adidas, but I repeatedly said it wasn't done—and explained why.

Did Adidas spent a ton of money on Penn State and Tennessee? Yes. Did Adidas also pursue Utah? Yes. And if I understand correctly, TAMU hasn't renewed either. (Something to keep an eye on especially w several high profiles TAMU players being Jordan/Nike athletes & TAMU having a separate Nike deal for T&F).

But Adidas made a fatal assumption: they thought Miami was theirs because of the relationships they had built in South Florida, including Miami-Dade and Inter Miami.

The problem? They didn't generate enough goodwill with Miami itself. For the last 4–5 years, we've finally started being treated like the brand we are.

From what I understand, Adidas did attempt to counter; but, once you're talking about $57M/year tied into three programs, the Nike offer was reportedly far beyond what Adidas could match.

And this is part of a broader trend I've been watching for years. I said several programs were going to flip back to Nike:

1. Cincinnati — back with Jordan/Nike
2. Cal — back with Nike
3. UCLA — flipped to Jordan
4. UTSA — flipped to Nike
5. Rice — flipped to Nike
6. Sacramento State — back with Nike (thanks, Mike Bibby)
7. Auburn — flipped to Nike
8. South Carolina — flipped to Nike (thanks, Ms. Wilson)

And now...

Miami is coming home.

That's bigger than uniforms.

Great stuff @Rellyrell - I’m pumped up.

What do you mean about the IPF being redone? Just the branding inside or more?

 

Adidas didn’t hamper us in basketball, that’s a complete myth. Jai Lucas recruited well with Adidas, Coach L took the program to unprecedented heights with Adidas. It’s not the logo, it’s the resources and people that matter. As long as Coach Lucas is doing his thing, Miami basketball will be fine.

Yeah but let’s be real here, they didn’t enhance us either lol; as far as grassroots and not portal goes, we signed three blue chippers so far. 2 of them played for our assistant coach in high school and/or eybl and the other attended the same HS as our HC & played on our HC’s family run eybl team lol. Those two programs are amazing but they aren’t going to have five stars every year

It’s possible that being with adidas hampered us in the pursuit of Brandon McCoy, unsure tho as Michigan was just so **** good. Who’s to say we would’ve missed out on all the kids we brought on OVs

Ty stokes was legit the first major possible superstar eybl player I’ve ever seen sign with an adidas school. & Kentucky was just so bad they lost their lead for the package deal between him and his pg

Being a Nike school enhances our basketball program compared to as an adidas school we don’t get any extra juice from it because Louisville and Kansas & others are prioritized basketball wise. Adidas has two circuit players at IMG that they want both of to go to NC State.

Nike didn’t allow Eli Woodard to commit to Miami at the opening because we were an adidas school lol, imagine all the other doors shut because of it

 

Arizona was a Nike school, when they won it all, FYI. Keep in mind, Nike has held most of the blue bloods for most of the last forty years, it stands to reason that they would have the bulk of the championship wins. It would make sense to look at Final Four appearances as well. Who was the UA winner? Maryland was a Nike school when they won it all, they moved to UA afterwards.

Keep in mind, only a small handful of schools have won titles in that timeframe, with many repeating multiple times over. Nike has owned those schools for longer than a good chunk of us have been alive.

You’re correct, AZ was Nike school and for some reason Gemini had UVA incorrectly listed as a UA school in 2019.

 

I do.

@Confidence1000 …get in here brother. This dude just said to the other dude that he wants “the pipe.” What in the ***aloon **** is going on around here?!?

I do want the pipe back. Sorry you didn’t see the earlier posts that were already directed about this.

Also, sorry I don’t play closet homo games like this or smacking balls.

Yall have the ****** behavior acting like children with this ****.

But if it makes you happy to be that way have at it.

 

I do.

@Confidence1000 …get in here brother. This dude just said to the other dude that he wants “the pipe.” What in the ***aloon **** is going on around here?!?

I do want the pipe back. Sorry you didn’t see the earlier posts that were already directed about this.

Also, sorry I don’t play closet homo games like this or smacking balls.

Yall have the ****** behavior acting like children with this ****.

But if it makes you happy to be that way have at it.

I think he’s joking boss, it’s never that serious

 

I do.

@Confidence1000 …get in here brother. This dude just said to the other dude that he wants “the pipe.” What in the ***aloon **** is going on around here?!?

I do want the pipe back. Sorry you didn’t see the earlier posts that were already directed about this.

Also, sorry I don’t play closet homo games like this or smacking balls.

Yall have the ****** behavior acting like children with this ****.

But if it makes you happy to be that way have at it.

I think he’s joking boss, it’s never that serious

They’ve already made comments on it. It’s ****** behavior that’s been ongoing for years. It was funny the first couple hundred times. Now it’s just *** as ****.

I’m just speaking on it because for whatever reason it’s become normal behavior that isn’t original anymore and the horse has been bludgeoned enough times.

We get it…yall think like ****. Can we get back to Miami?

 

Am I happy we went back to Nike? Absolutely. Here’s my thing that lingers in my head. With the money adidas was paying us. I’m sure it helped out with NIL. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. Cause I’d gladly be wrong here. But in my mind adidas money helped us get back to the top. And now we go back to the ex when we’re **** again. Someone please tell me I’m wrong here.

 

Keep winning and guys like this might turn into fans. Not all of them. Not most of them. But some of them. People love to be a part of a winning team. Its human nature. Its realistically why so many of us are fans.

With all due respect, anyone can be a fan. People are just pointing out that Dana White is cheap and selfish.

Hey, the woman who created Spanx is an FSU alum. But gives no money. The guy who founded Reliaquest is an FSU alum. But won’t pay for the patch on the football jerseys.

I don’t care if Dana White is a UM fan if he is unwilling to cut checks.

 

Don’t give a **** about uniforms. Never understood this forum’s obsession with them (although we’ve had plenty of hideous) jerseys. All I care about is the money and improvement to NIL.

 

Don’t give a **** about uniforms. Never understood this forum’s obsession with them (although we’ve had plenty of hideous) jerseys. All I care about is the money and improvement to NIL.

Only thing that matters to me is the gear we wear on the field in relation to performance, aka the cleats.

And I know my **** with cleats. Adidas is an amateur brand compared to Nike in that department. It's the same **** with Under Armour when they went into the NFL and signed players to exclusive contracts, only for them to supply inadequate gear.

 

2027 View attachment 373159View attachment 373160View attachment 373161View attachment 373162

Let’s move on from the block font, back to the 00s font

 

2027 View attachment 373159View attachment 373160View attachment 373161View attachment 373162

Terrible..should add color to the collar

 

So b4 I post my thorough breakdown, here’s On3’s take:



OK, why is this a good thing for us? Obviously, the $$$ is important, but the notoriety and recruiting implications may be even bigger.

Oh—and I forgot to mention this earlier: remember those “upgraded” Adidas uniforms we’ve been getting? High school teams have them, too!! I literally blew a gasket standing on the field and seeing D1/P4-level uniforms being worn by high school kids. Wild.

Now, back to the point.

I’ve been warning for a while that Nike is positioning itself to become the premier NIL brand, and that was going to increasingly impact recruiting. Adidas athletes have already been going to Nike schools, while virtually every Nike NIL athlete has been landing at Nike schools. The lone major exception I’ve seen is Tyran Stokes going to Kansas.

Miami returning to Nike changes that equation.

1. Recruiting:​

This immediately opens the door to the elite Nike high schools—Mater Dei, East St. Louis, DeSoto, St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita, etc.

And this isn't just football -

It creates a major recruiting avenue for basketball because EYBL is, by far, the most influential AAU circuit in the country. The overwhelming majority of elite basketball prospects come through that circuit, and it’s Nike. Most of those players ultimately gravitate toward Nike/Jordan schools, with a handful going to traditional Adidas blue bloods.

Now Miami is back in that ecosystem.

2. The NIL Difference:​

This is probably the biggest part. Nike’s NIL infrastructure is on another level compared with Adidas and Under Armour. I’m not talking about a few commercials and free gear.

I personally know three current high-school Nike NIL athletes—one of them extremely well—and Nike gave all three their own shoe to design, customize and sell through Nike.com. All three sold out immediately, and the athletes received a portion of the profits.

Now imagine Miami being an official Nike Blue Ribbon program alongside schools such as South Carolina, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, USC, Oregon and Clemson.

That creates opportunities for our athletes to develop exclusive NIL relationships with Nike that can potentially extend into their professional careers, although obviously the terms and compensation change once they turn pro.

And for the record, this has nothing to do with Toney’s /// deal. That's separate, although his agreement may be year-to-year.

Guys like Sears and Lennear—and I was just with Lennear’s teammate last Friday—have Adidas NIL agreements that are strictly for high school. Once they reach college, they can renew, switch, or pursue something completely different. Think Chris Henry Jr.

3. The Miami Brand:​

This deal also means:
• More NIL opportunities
• Better recruiting access
• Better fan gear—both quantity AND quality
• A much stronger shoe/cleat presence
• Greater exposure through Nike/Jordan’s South Florida network
• And, yes, Nike will be redoing the IPF

With the number of South Florida influencers connected to Nike and Jordan Brand, our footwear presence could eventually start looking more like Oregon.

4. Nike's Elite Football Schools:​

In no particular order—and excluding Jordan Brand schools—I'd expect Nike's core priorities to include:
• Miami
• LSU
• Alabama
• Clemson
• Tennessee
• Ohio State
• Florida State
• Auburn
• South Carolina
• Oregon
• USC
• Kentucky

And PSU made this decision pretty easy for Nike.

Nike wasn't particularly concerned about Tennessee leaving. Penn State hurt. It's the first time I've seen Nike put out a farewell tweet like that for a school outside of the Tiger Woods situation—and Nike still refuses to rename his building!

Nike's original “Core 4” were Penn State, Miami, USC and Florida State.

-FSU got paid.

-USC got paid.

-PSU prematurely jumped ship because their AD was heavily Adidas-oriented.

At that point, I figured Miami was eventually coming home.

That's why I started chirping about it, until a certain poster confused my intel/corrections with me being a fanboy. So I backed off.

And I'll admit it: for a minute, it looked like I might be wrong. I fully expected us to re-sign with Adidas, but I repeatedly said it wasn't done—and explained why.

Did Adidas spent a ton of money on Penn State and Tennessee? Yes. Did Adidas also pursue Utah? Yes. And if I understand correctly, TAMU hasn't renewed either. (Something to keep an eye on especially w several high profiles TAMU players being Jordan/Nike athletes & TAMU having a separate Nike deal for T&F).

But Adidas made a fatal assumption: they thought Miami was theirs because of the relationships they had built in South Florida, including Miami-Dade and Inter Miami.

The problem? They didn't generate enough goodwill with Miami itself. For the last 4–5 years, we've finally started being treated like the brand we are.

From what I understand, Adidas did attempt to counter; but, once you're talking about $57M/year tied into three programs, the Nike offer was reportedly far beyond what Adidas could match.

And this is part of a broader trend I've been watching for years. I said several programs were going to flip back to Nike:

1. Cincinnati — back with Jordan/Nike
2. Cal — back with Nike
3. UCLA — flipped to Jordan
4. UTSA — flipped to Nike
5. Rice — flipped to Nike
6. Sacramento State — back with Nike (thanks, Mike Bibby)
7. Auburn — flipped to Nike
8. South Carolina — flipped to Nike (thanks, Ms. Wilson)

And now...

Miami is coming home.

That's bigger than uniforms.

Proud to see my favorite football team come back home to the Nike family.

 

Don’t give a **** about uniforms. Never understood this forum’s obsession with them (although we’ve had plenty of hideous) jerseys. All I care about is the money and improvement to NIL.

You don’t care about how the brand looks when millions of eyes are watching? You don’t care when college football’s most iconic cfb announcer is laughing at adidas jersey & pant quality when discussing our program? There’s a reason why brands like Disney have the strictest visual branding policies out there.

I Don’t even need to go into the countless reasons already discussed in this thread highlighting adidas complete incompetence as it relates to their execution (lack thereof) of a football uniform.

A uniform is extremely important to a football program. Both performance wise and branding

 

Am I happy we went back to Nike? Absolutely. Here’s my thing that lingers in my head. With the money adidas was paying us. I’m sure it helped out with NIL. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. Cause I’d gladly be wrong here. But in my mind adidas money helped us get back to the top. And now we go back to the ex when we’re **** again. Someone please tell me I’m wrong here.

Adidas had a chance to match the $ Nike offered. It's simply business. As I've said many many times, Nike is struggling and is more desperate to make a splash. They got a Championship program. The timing was good for both parties to make a deal and Miami is the beneficiary. Nike will be pushing hard in athletics and performance and Miami will be a big part of it. Jordan Brand is basically dying and it's customers are aging out. They have to stop the focus on old retro gear that's uncomfortable; shoes we wore as kids. I think Miami is going to be a part of Nike's revitalization and it's going to be a very good thing for us.

 

Lol; no they didn’t, & I can go into great details to completely debunk this. Coach L himself said the switch would hurt recruiting. The magical Final 4 run was based upon good coaching & a team full of solid guys, but we’ve missed out on a ton of the upper echelons. ****, KU got Peterson b/c Adidas literally paid for him on KU’s behalf.

Nike runs the most elite AAU circuit. I’ve been there homie; imma be there again next yr. The most elite kids r going to Nike schools b/c Nike dominates basketball & it’s not close. There’s a reason Adidas is putting all they have into Ant Edwards b/c he’s the coolest athlete they have & maybe if he could stop being so immature, he can finally be “the one” for Adidas to boost their perception.

But what about the Pete AI graphics and board rhetoric about Adidas being the clear cut best option for Miami…

 

Adidas had a chance to match the $ Nike offered. It's simply business. As I've said many many times, Nike is struggling and is more desperate to make a splash. They got a Championship program. The timing was good for both parties to make a deal and Miami is the beneficiary. Nike will be pushing hard in athletics and performance and Miami will be a big part of it. Jordan Brand is basically dying and it's customers are aging out. They have to stop the focus on old retro gear that's uncomfortable; shoes we wore as kids. I think Miami is going to be a part of Nike's revitalization and it's going to be a very good thing for us.

For people my age, Nike isn't really considered the “cool” brand to wear anymore. With the explosion of long-distance running, Ironman/triathlon, and HYROX, performance-athleisure brands have become much more popular—Lululemon, Alo, Vuori, Gymshark, and Ten Thousand. These brands have really become the go-to for Gen-Z.

Vintage clothing is also a huge trend among our generation. I bet if Nike brought back some of its designs from the late '90s and early 2000s, they'd absolutely make a killing. I'd much rather get an Vintage Nike shirt from Depop or a thrift store over anything they sell on their website

 

Let’s move on from the block font, back to the 00s font
View attachment 373179

From what I understood that font was exclusive to Nike… Adidas couldn’t use it. I can’t remember who, but there was another school Nike toyed using the font with after our departure but it’s really ours. It’s unique and there should be no issue putting it back in play.