Adidas Sticks With T-Mobile: Please Don’t Be Surprised
After months of grueling deliberations, Adidas has decided to keep sponsoring the T-Mobile cycling team. Is this really a surprise to anyone? Adidas is totally wrapped up in the cycling business. T-Mobile’s sponsorship decision was one thing because they don’t sell cycling stuff; they are in the telephone business. Adidas, however, sells an entire line of cycling apparel and gear. Also, don’t forget that Adidas owns Mavic. The fact of the matter is that Adidas made the decision a long time ago to be in the cycling business, and deciding to end their sponsorship would have been silly.
This might have been the press release had they decided to end the sponsorship:
Dear Cycling Fans:
We are sad to report that we have ended our sponsorship of the T-Mobile cycling team. Adidas is a multi-brand, multi-national corporation that cares about the health of athletes around the globe. After long deliberation we have decided that the best thing for us to do right now is to focus our resources on other sports. We will work hard to sponsor the top athletes in soccer, basketball, football, baseball, and golf because everyone knows that there is no doping in those sports. Don’t worry…We will continue to sponsor cycling teams with our Mavic brand and sponsor top cyclists with Adidas shoes because that isn’t at all hypocritical. In fact we continue to sponsor Alexander Vinokourov because he would still be a really good rider even if he were clean. We are saddened today that we need to take this decision to superficially leave the sport of cycling behind. We hope that you will continue to buy the different products that we offer from our cycling brands.
Sincerely- Adidas
P.S. Why would Adidas leave the one sport in which they have totally clobbered Nike. It would be like Wal-Mart forcing Target out of business and then announcing that they have completed their goal of beating the competition and, since there isn’t anything left to do, they will now close.
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