Who Can Afford The Price War Between Nike And Barcelona?

Two old sports giants, Nike and Adidas, have recently launched a series of news about money throwing, sponsoring football clubs, robbing each other's contracts, digging designers and invading each other's fields.

Last week we reported that Adidas and Chelsea had terminated their Jersey contracts ahead of time, and predicted that Nike, the old rival, was most likely to arrive.

There was no accident. Premier Chelsea and Nike announced that they would sign a 10 year contract with us $87 million a year, coming into force in June 2017.

It will continue its long term cooperation with Barcelona for 8 years until 2026, with a sponsorship fee of up to 105 million euros per season. If the winning bonus is counted, the figure will reach 155 million euros ($174 million).

The contract has surpassed Adidas and Manchester United to become the most expensive Jersey sponsorship in the world.

Adidas's annual sponsorship of 5 teams cost US $400 million astronomical figures, although the heavyweight has not been matched yet, Nike has been catching up with the magnitude.

In addition to reducing budgets, Adidas focuses its efforts on main football clubs (Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayern...)

Its capital invested in another sport in the US market, rugby.

In a recent interview with Thomson Reuters, Adidas CEOMarkKing said that ADI hopes to sign more American sports stars in the next few years, compared with the current red fashion.

To provide more durable sales drivers.

The 1/3 plan is to increase the number of players sponsoring NFL (National Football League) from 95 to 250 by 2020, and increase the number of NBA sponsorship players from 70 to 100.

The expansion of basketball is slow, MarkKing said.

I don't want to break the relationship with Nike for the time being.

In order to design shoes for the American market, ADI has removed three star footwear designers from Nike. Mark duer is the designer of AirForce1.

They will open a new studio in Broolyn, New York, and will operate in September this year.

As for what the studio is going to produce, it is probably the shoe price of $80-100, because Adidas has received a lot of feedback about shoes too expensive.

MarkKing said that low price running shoes will become the main driving force of the company's economic growth in the future (or the basis for a good relationship with retailers). "Retailers are beginning to think that Adidas is part of American business rather than an imported brand."

ADI has fallen to the third place in the sports market in the United States for a long time. This month, financial reports released by Adi showed a 31% increase in the US. Currently, Adidas soccer shoes in the United States have benefited greatly from the cooperation with rap SnoopDogg. The company has just released the latest X16+PureChaos and MESSI16+PureAgiltiy boots, and has also adopted the innovative design without shoelaces, which is about to debut in the Champions League final, the European Cup and the Copa America Cup.