• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

UCLA and Adidas have reached a tentative agreement to extend the school’s shoe-apparel contract for another six years, athletic department representatives confirmed last week.

Officials from the athletic department and the sports apparel giant are finalizing the details of the new contract which would become effective July 1, 2005, and UCLA hopes to have a deal in place by Oct. 1, barring any last-minute complications.

Although exact details were not disclosed, the agreement is substantially similar to the existing deal and is expected to be slightly more lucrative than the current contract, a six-year, $18.95 million deal that will expire after the 2004-2005 academic year.

“We are very pleased to wear these three strips for the next six years,” said UCLA Associate Athletic Director Glenn Toth, who is in charge of corporate development and spearheaded the negotiation process. “We have had minimal issues with Adidas products.”

An Adidas representative declined to comment.

Toth said UCLA did have preliminary communications with several of Adidas’ rivals but never seriously considered making the switch. Nike, which sponsors roughly 30 Division I school’s varsity programs, would have been the most likely alternative, but Toth said that the university’s philosophy was much more compatible with Adidas than any of its competitors.

“Adidas, once again, was deemed the best partner,” he said.

“It comes down to would you rather be 1 of 30 or 1 of 6. Adidas has made us feel very much like a priority to them.”

Had UCLA decided to make a swap, the transition would have been extremely difficult.

A contract with either Reebok or Nike would need to be finalized by October of 2004 to order products and equipment in time for the fall season of 2005.

That would have left the school with a lame-duck contract with Adidas for a full year and with the added expense of ordering all-new products for every UCLA varsity team.

Making a switch also might have upset some of UCLA’s coaches, many of whom have a long-standing relationship with Adidas.

Men’s basketball coach Ben Howland has been associated with Adidas since he was at Pittsburgh, while women’s coach Kathy Olivier and other longtime Bruin coaches have kept close ties with the shoe-apparel corporation since UCLA ditched Reebok for it in 1998.

Having a tentative agreement in place will also help coaches entice top recruits, who often take into account a school’s sponsor when deciding where to go to college.

“The recruits definitely want to know what product you’re with, and I think Adidas is a plus,” Olivier said. “You’d either want to be Adidas or Nike, and I always thought Adidas was the best.”

Despite its recent struggles in the revenue-producing sports, UCLA is generally considered an attractive partner by shoe-apparel companies. The university has a successful track record in football, basketball and the Olympic sports, and its teams frequently appear on national television or locally in the lucrative Los Angeles market.

A shoe-apparel contract with Adidas offsets what would otherwise be a hard-dollar expense for UCLA – supplying the athletic department with money and equipment.

The money is not ear-marked for any particular expense, but is put towards the department’s general operating fund.

Including UCLA, Adidas shares similar all-encompassing partnerships with six schools, including Notre Dame, Tennessee and Pittsburgh.