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Originally posted by Karl

Siya
If we can continue playing as we did vs Uruguay maybe we will start

being seen as a sexy pawn in the war between these two giants. A Jamaica playing attractive football could be a big catch for Adidas in a battle they are currently losing with nike of snapping up trendy International teams. I think Jamaica is one of the few countries where non nationals will actually buy and where our jerseys and Boxhill and crew should use this in their favor next time they sit down to work out kit sponsorship.
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Nike gets a leg up after Brazil’s World Cup win
Beaverton shoe company is tearing into Adidas territory
BY JASON VONDERSMITH AND MARY BELLOTTI Issue date: 7/2/2002
The Tribune

Two world powers collided Sunday.
Nike of Beaverton won.
Actually, Brazil won the World Cup, but the team was dressed from top to bottom with the swoosh.
Adidas, with U.S. headquarters in North Portland, sponsored runner-up Germany.
“Some people called the finals ‘Nike vs. Adidas,’ ” Nike spokeswoman Joani Komlos says. “We wouldn’t characterize it that way. Our equipment is built to make players be better players for themselves.
“They’re still the players. How could we take credit for their win?”
But, rest assured, Nike will milk this victory. Starting in 1994, when Nike made an aggressive debut on the World Cup scene, the company has wanted to make soccer as much a part of its portfolio as basketball and running.
Brazil beating Germany 2-0 in the World Cup final hardly qualifies as an upset, but the swoosh beating the three stripes serves notice that Nike continues to nip at the heels of Adidas, the recognized world leader in soccer gear.
Adidas sponsored the World Cup to the tune of $37 million and outfitted 10 teams, including its home country Germans. Nike provided equipment for eight Cup teams, including Brazil.
So, this week at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, they’ll be celebrating the bragging rights they will hold on Adidas America for the next four years.
Adidas America employs 1,000 in the Portland area, and moved to its location on Greeley Avenue — the old Bess Kaiser Hospital property — in January. Nike has about 5,000 employees in the metropolitan area.
Nike officials expect a “World Cup spike” in sales around the world, including the United States after its team’s success.
The 2002 World Cup was “a great opportunity to leverage our football success into expanded brand power,” reads the Nike 2001 annual report.

Football finances

Since 1994, Nike sales of football-related products — the world outside the United States calls soccer “football” — has increased more than tenfold to $500 million for the fiscal year that ended May 31. By the 2006 World Cup, Nike expects soccer-related annual sales to reach $1 billion.
Adidas’ soccer-related sales were not available at press time, but “obviously, we’re higher than” Nike, says Nicole Vollebregt, director of public relations for Adidas America in Portland.
Forty-two percent of the players in the World Cup wore Nike gear, company officials say, including the new, lightweight $175 Mercurial Vapor shoes. Among the major players to don the shoes were Brazil’s Ronaldo, who had eight goals in the tournament, including both scores in the final game.
“We were the No. 1 brand on the field,” Komlos boasts.
Yet, Nike has to overcome the world dominance of Adidas, which sponsored the 1998 World Cup and will foot the bill for the 2006 World Cup in Germany — not to mention this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in China.
An estimated 44 billion people watched the World Cup, and millions and millions could not have seen it without noticing the Adidas influence. The company designed a shoe specifically for the World Cup — the $200 Predator Mania, with its trademark three stripes wrapped 360 degrees around the shoe for greater television exposure.
More than 150 World Cup players wore the Predator. England’s David Beckham and Italy’s Allesandro Del Piero were among the high-profile players to wear champagne-colored Predator shoes.
Adidas reportedly has a market share of 70 percent on high-end shoe sales. While Nike outfitted the U.S. team, 12 of the American players wore Adidas shoes; goalie Brad Friedel wore other Adidas equipment, as well.
Adidas also provided the official World Cup ball.
“We have already seen a huge jump in sales in the U.S. (because of the World Cup),” Vollebregt says. She was referring to shoes and apparel sales. “Globally, we have sold 7 million soccer balls.”
“We have gained a tremendous amount of exposure through our official sponsorship,” she adds. “It has also translated into sales that have surpassed our expectations.”
John Shanley, a New York-based analyst with Wells Fargo Securities and one of the country’s most noted Nike experts, says Brazil’s victory “will have a huge effect (on Nike sales) in Brazil.”
However, “as far as in Europe, I don’t think it’ll have that big of a material effect because they’ve already made nice inroads (on Adidas’ turf) as far as a soccer component there.”
In America, Shanley says, soccer “is still a relatively minor sport, and it doesn’t really drive business like Nike basketball or running shoes. I don’t think it’ll have that much of a material effect … other than giving them bragging rights.”

World market

Adidas claims to have regained the No. 1 position from Nike among sporting goods sales in France after the 1998 World Cup there, and it expects the same in South Korea and Japan. Vollebregt says the Adidas-Salomon Group doubled its sales in Asia from 1999 to 2001, and she says the company will see another double-digit increase this year.
“As you can see, the investment yields tremendous long-term rewards,” Vollebregt says.
Nike has tried to counter the Adidas domination with “the largest integrated marketing campaign in its history” for the World Cup, Komlos says, using TV ads, the Internet with interactive Web sites and Nike soccer parks.
The company also sponsors Major League Soccer, the U.S. Soccer Federation, the U.S. Women’s World Cup team, women’s development teams and European clubs, including powerhouse Manchester United.
“It’s in our DNA,” Nike’s Komlos says. “We always get the question: Why not sponsor FIFA? We want to focus on players. It’s all about teams and players. And the little kid who runs out and can’t wait to play.
“We have a core consumer and a sport they love and live, and they’ll build brand loyalty.”
Many people say most sports fans only pay attention to soccer every four years.
Similarly, Nike says it will tone down its marketing to “locally relevant” themes.
As for Adidas, “for us, it is great that Germany made it to the final. We are once again an official sponsor in 2006,” Vollebregt says. “We have our sights on that tournament already. Germany being in the final only heightens the anticipation and excitement.”

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