- Joined
- Dec 22, 2011
- Messages
- 47,254
I’m assuming he’s somewhat interested if they’re trying to find loopholes for all of this? @TheOriginalCane
Lots of angles. Again, some of these people who keep yelling about "take the highest bid" for the shoe deal have no idea how much anger there is within the UM community over what Blake did in signing with adidas, and the desire to switch back to Nike regardless of Mario.
Now we have uninformed people yapping about how adidas offered "triple" what Nike offered. The end result is that the adidas deal was about a million more (the Nike deal was sales/incentive driven, and the comparison can be done on the basis of what Nike would have paid with the actual level of sales from 2015-now). The adidas money has increased recently due to the Louisville deal, and enough has been written about how Blake did not even exercise the most-favored-nation clause until later.
The reality is that there isn't a lot of competition out there, whether it is TV contracts (dominated by ABC-ESPN) or shoe contracts (dominated by Nike). We are stuck with a super-long ACC deal with ESPN, and we are stuck with a super-long UM deal with adidas. This concept of "highest bidder" is a joke, and we just need to get a fair market deal for apparel/shoes.
Just look around at the "flagship" adidas schools that get special shoes. The best is Texas A&M. After that? Washington. Nebraska. Indiana. NC State. Arizona State. Georgia Tech. Kansas. Mississippi State. Louisville. What a collection of mid-pack schools...
Just get back to Nike and let the money sort itself out.