ASU Football: ADIDAS Contract Good or Bad for ASU?
By Mike Slifer
Last week, ASU announced a new partnership with ADIDAS for sponsorship and provision of athletic apparel and uniforms. This new partnership terminates the contract that ASU had with Nike for about ten years.
Financially, it’s a good deal for ASU. ADIDAS is going to pay the Sun Devil athletic programs twice as much as Nike in order to have their logo plastered all over ASU uniforms and fan apparel. That’s a no brainer for an athletic department that is looking everywhere for revenue.
Normally, what company sponsors your apparel and uniforms would not be newsworthy. (And it probably shouldn’t be). However, in this day and age, the gear, marketing and branding are pretty important. They are important to fans, who spend a lot of money on T-shirts, hats, jackets, sweatpants, etc of their favorite team. Most of those fans like the look and feel of certain manufacturers over others. The result is that for many fans that purchase ASU gear, there are “mini-cults” that only wear Nike stuff, ADIDAS stuff, Converse, etc.
The word on the street is that Nike stuff is the coolest around. Therefore, a lot of fans are upset that their team won’t be wearing Nike gear anymore. There is talk that apparel sales will fall abruptly because of this deal.
Furthermore, (and nobody should be surprised by this) many high school players (recruits) that are deciding on where to play college ball will consider the sponsor as part of the decision on whether to attend that school or not. In fact, it is not unusual for recruits to switch their commitments when a school changes from Nike to ADIDAS or vice versa. It happens all the time.
This is what has some hard-core ASU fans worried. Will the Sun Devils miss out on some highly rated recruits because they don’t want to wear ADIDAS cleats on game day? Possibly. That mentality will probably affect football more than any other sport. Baseball attracts good players because of the tradition of ASU baseball. Men’s basketball is not a destination for elite high school players.
But football has some tradition and recent success. Coach Graham is trying to turn the corner into becoming a heavy hitter on the recruiting trail. Luring 5-star recruits away from Los Angeles or Texas is already a challenge. Throwing in a sponsor that has the perception of being “less cool” probably isn’t going to help.
In the end, Devils in Detail doesn’t believe any of this will truly affect recruiting. Maybe a few here and there. But coach Graham (and the other ASU head coaches) will probably tell you that he doesn’t want a kid to come here if his main concern is the brand of gear he has to wear. If that’s more important to him/her, then they can go play somewhere else.
But in reality, ADIDAS will probably churn out some pretty sweet uniforms. They’ve given a good new look to UCLA recently. Notre Dame as well. ADIDAS isn’t stupid. They’re going to design and sell some cool stuff that people will like wearing.
So, relax, ASU fans. This issue will likely be a non-issue real soon. Hopefully, by Dec. 27th, nobody will be talking about it anymore.