Adidas spent more than $50 million on its top 10 schools last year compared to $37 million for Nike, and that creates some interesting juxtapositions while also illustrating a key point. Michigan received double what its archrival Ohio State got last season. Is Michigan twice as valuable? It was to Adidas. Indiana, based on the strength of its basketball program primarily, made more than Nike’s big basketball bet, Kentucky, which has made four Final Fours in the past five years. Under Armour, the hot new brand on the scene, fits right between the two but only had six really big contracts last year if you include Notre Dame’s reported figure. (Hawaii was Under Armour’s seventh-most valuable team, getting $440,000 last year). Overall, Under Armour spent about $4.1 million per school on Notre Dame, Auburn, Maryland, South Carolina, Utah and South Florida (but just $3.17 million on average last year for the last five). Nike was at $3.7 million for its top 10 and Adidas was at just over $5 million per team.
Taking price out of it for a second, if you had to choose one of these team “portfolios” based solely on their potential returns, which one are you picking? My guess is not many are saying Adidas, which is at least partially the source of some of the grousing about Nebraska’s current supplier – it doesn’t seem like a company that’s gaining traction. Quite the opposite and when so much of the discussion around college football centers on a program’s appeal to recruits, that’s a problem. Better to be on the side of the “smart money.”
