How did Louisville become the Adidas cash cow? Seems like there would be other schools ahead of them in the pecking order.
On the other hand, why can’t UK get the same sort of treatment from Nike? I get the Oregon thing, but I would have thought Cal and all the NBA players that he’s produced, would have gravitated them our way at a higher level. If I was Barnhart I would be renegotiating a sweeter deal or looking elsewhere to one up Louisville.
Mitch dropped the ball,plain and simple.
He has us locked into our apparel deal with Nike until 2025, we extended in 2017 for 8 more years for 47 million.
https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article177171821.html
Meanwhile, down i-64, at the same time in 2017, UL inked a deal with Adidas worth 160 million over 10 years. As a matter of fact UL"s deal is the highest in the country as of 2021-2022. We aren't even in the top 20, you'll find teams like Arizona St, NC St, and even UConn ahead of us.
https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2021/09/21/ncaa-apparel-deals.html
That's why Adidas is laying out cash for NIL deals for UL fball players, they want to get a decent return on the apparel investment they've made in them. Nike has no reason to do anything special for us, we're just another one of their 68 schools that they sponsor.
https://boardroom.tv/ncaa-football-apparel-brand-partners/
I'm not sure how we let ourselves fall do far down in the pecking order, but there is absolutely no reason that teams like IU and Arizona St and UL should be getting more apparel money than us. When it's time to renew, we should be listening to ALL the apparel companies and getting the best deal out there and making sure there are NIL incentives built into it. Innovative thinking is what is needed, not just sticking to the status quo.