January 22, 2012 - 3:05pm
Hear Me Out: Adidas Has Not Destroyed Michigan
BY MAGGIE CHANG
I think I’m going to lose my mind if I hear one more person tell me about how horrible Adidas is compared to Nike. I like Nike. All of my shoes and socks are Nike. However, I don’t mind Adidas. And neither should you. Michigan Athletics is officially sponsored by Adidas. So much ruckus occurred when the University moved from Nike to Adidas. Years later, people are still angry, complaining about how we’ve destroyed this school. I’m rolling my eyes at you people.
Hear me out. Adidas is good for the University of Michigan.
Did you know that Nike and Adidas produce their clothing in the same factory and shirts just come out with different logos on them? It’s true — our Athletic Director Dave Brandon has confirmed this. So any point about the quality of Adidas shirts being worse than Nike is completely invalid.
There are also many sports in the Athletic Department. Believe it or not but we do have more than football at this school. Remember that although Nike is the main brand for professional football, Adidas has a large market in professional sports that include hockey (Reebok), soccer, tennis, gymnastics as well as many others. I’ll admit, Nike’s running shoes for track are better than Adidas in my opinion, which is a consequence of this contract.
However, for football, the fact that Adidas isn’t the largest at the college level is a benefit to us. Think about it. Under Nike, Michigan — although influential — is just one of many other huge universities. They have major contracts with Oregon, Penn State, LSU, and that school to the south. Nike doesn’t need to grow anymore in the football industry, so do you really think they will care too much if we don’t like one of their products? Maybe, but they could probably afford the loss.
But for our friends at Adidas…it’s different. Adidas is trying hard to make an impact in the collegiate football industry and Michigan is by far their biggest client, followed by other powerhouses like Notre Dame and Wisconsin. If we’re not happy with something, they have to fix it in order to build a reputation and grow in this sector of the industry.
During the Under the Lights discussions with Adidas about the special game jerseys, Michigan and Adidas were disputing over which logo to use: the retro one which would match the throwback feel of the jersey, or the newer logo which Adidas was trying hard to push through. Guess who won? Michigan, with their want for the retro logo.
There was a lot of backlash about how a relationship with Adidas would affect our football recruiting as well. Listen: We have a top 10 recruiting class for 2012. I think we’re doing just fine with Adidas and I would hope recruits would look more to the team they’ll be playing on and the coaches rather than the brand they’ll be putting on.
Are there a lot of things left for Adidas to do in this relationship? Absolutely. Better marketing for a start. More “wow!” factors, more product development to stay competitive and more attention to getting the customers informed about these products are all needed. But that will all come in time. For my peace and sanity, I need you all to keep an open mind toward Adidas. The more open we are, the better they’ll be. And you never know, you may even end up liking them.
