Adidas also signed Kobe originally but once he blew up Nike offered him a much more lucrative contract.
Personally, I have a ton of Adidas shoes but I don't care for their athletic gear or sneakers. My gym shoes are usually Asics or Nikes. Adidas kills the street wear/casual shoe market IMO but their athletic shoes don't do much for me. The only thing they've done with Miami that I really love is the 2016-current uniforms. I love the clean, classic style way more than any of the goofy trend chasing stuff.
My only opinion in this argument is for who is gonna go above and beyond just a paycheck and some gear.
Yes adidas and Nike can both pay. But who’s gonna give you more bang for their buck.
What other factors come into play besides money.
New training and technology?
Marketing?
Exposure and networking?
Nutritional advancements?
I’ll give you a comparison for example.
My friend is a professional musician and his specialty is latin percussion.
He has been with the major producer of latin percussion instruments for almost 20 years now.
The company is called “Lp Music” and it obviously stands for latin percussion. I’ve known several percussionist that have signed with them.
But news flash: a lot of their products aren’t as good as some of the competition when it comes to sound quality. But lp has the market cornered.
In his words “if I’m on tour in Africa and my bags get lost or didn’t make it on the connecting flight I can go into any music store and they will have lp gear. I make a call and they’ll get in contact with the store and I’ll get whatever I need. No “I’ll reimburse you later” or “you can only get this or that”. Whatever I want from the store I get it.
Nobody else will come close to that”
And he’s not even close to being the most famous percussionist they have under contract.
In short I want more than just money for the school.
Who’s gonna be there for you as a company and give you everything they have at their disposal.
I want what Bama and Oregon have. I want more than just a closet and a trailer full of gear.