Adidas Jersey Issues! UPDATED & EDITED
With GR3's jersey issues today (originally reported as blood, later to be tearing) can Michigan finally get away from Adidas? Not sure if it was widely known but the report of Michigan not having their Blue road uniforms since the Minnesota game, and would be wearing last years jerseys if the road team.
That Minnesota game was on JANUARY 17th that is over 2 months ago, and Adidas can't get Michigan replacement jerseys?
I know there is always a lot of complaining about the apperal that Adidas puts out but with the football jersey issues the last two seasons, and now these issues with the basketball team there has to be a change.
Edit: It appears Adidas has mad a statement about Michigan not having their road uniforms.
Adidas statement: “We have plenty of Michigan uniforms including the home white jersey they wore today. There won’t be any issues.”
— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) March 23, 2013
Adidas was the brand I grew up with playing soccer and I've never had any issues with quality. In fact, the copa mundial shoe is widely known as the best and most durable shoe out there for soccer. I have 4 pairs of them and they are all still in great shape after 10+ years. It's all personal preference but I can't say the same for my experiences with Nike and puma quality. I still buy stuff from all 3 though!
Anyway all I'm saying is that I'll wait to hear both sides..... Definitely not going to ban a brand I have always had good luck with in the past......
Do you think that anyone will volunteer another "side" to this story? Do you think the Athletic Department will make a statement? Do you think Beilein will answer questions? Do you think that they will allow the players to talk about it? Will adidas field reporters' questions?
That would comprise "the other side."
I don't see that happening. Has there ever been any official explanation about the football jerseys? The ones that left our guys wearing three different iterations of jerseys, some of them a year old?
Edit.- since the original post was edited to include two lines from adidas, I thought it only fair to point out that that was the full extent of the explanation from adidas. A two-line e-mail. They claim to have "plenty" of Michigan jerseys, including the home whites as worn yesterday. But apparently no more Number 1's with Robinson's name on them. So, uh, go with a "12."
Brent Yarina at BTN:
http://btn.com/2013/03/23/clothes-call-another-ripped-michigan-jersey/
it seems like the issue is with all these new light weight fabrics they're developing and using. Something's gotta give when you go lighter and thinner, and it looks like that something is durability. We saw that in football season, and we're seeing it in basketball season, too. They need to get back to the drawing board on this.
Drop Adidas.
March 24th, 2013 at 11:53 AM ^
I am in the minority; however, I prefer Adidas over Nike. Nike is too over the top for my tastes. Adidas is somewhat boring but still presentable. Now I do not have all the facts on the recent uniform issues so I will reserve final judgement.
Look at pictures from before and after the Minnesota game. They were wearing last year's blue templates. The earlier jerseys had that goofy design on the upper chest above the lettering. After the Minnesota game, it went to last year's set, which doesn't have it.
Is it just me, or is Adidas purposely not replacing the unis to try to force the horrifying camo unis on Michigan?
I mean drop Adidas
Wouldn't be surprised if the broadcasters had it wrong. Thought we had worn this year's blues since Minnesota and 2 months of not having them/not hearing about it seems a little ridiculous.
I recall that at least one of the times we wore blue, they were last year's unis. So unless the announcers were wrong that time, too...
and I was in disbelief.
i mean, seriously, Adidas, seriously?
How can they not even have some crazy clown costume ready for upcoming "road" games?
One of the aspects of the Adidas deal that Michigan loudly celebrated was the fact that Adidas was going to have a rep on campus dedicated solely to Michigan. They were supposed to be giving us all of this attention to make sure things like this didn't happen.
What uniform supplier in 2013 can't provide enough stock to make sure damaged uniforms can be replaced? Why aren't there three or four sets per player for the guys who are constantly on the floor if the fabric is known to have durability issues? Why does it take two months to get replacements/extra sets?
And if you want to stretch it over to football, with the players having issues with the TechFit stuff to the extent that we have had three unique designs of away jerseys on the field at any given time... Why is this considered acceptable?
I'm not going to turn this into a Nike vs. Adidas thing, but you have to wonder why Adidas can get away with not being very good at this. Is it just the money?
/uniwatcher
I think this is just absolutely unacceptable. To have these kind of consistent quality issue, not having backup's, and then their awful goddamn clowniforms they come up with. I'm done with Adidas, for serious. Any new M gear will be gifts from others, or I'll source Nike gear from Ebay.
I've been hate mailing Adidas since last football season, when we were given the "bumblebee" crap against MSU. This is the only address I could find, I've gotten one response from them though, so someone is getting them.
The lack of quality is pretty disturbing. I've always thought the Nike vs. adidas debate is stupid because so much of it is predicated on the clowniformzz. Yes. Because one thing Nike is famous for is their fanatical adherence to traditionalism. Anyone who thinks we can solve the bumblebee problem by switching to Nike is stunningly ignorant.
The quality issue is another thing entirely. The apparel companies are so fixated on "revolutionary!!" fabrics and lighter this and lighter that. Everything they come out with is revolutionary. There's a new revolution in apparel every few months. And they have to feel like they're getting their money's worth out of their designers so they trot out what they act like are these terrifically pimped-out designs and revolutionary new ways of sewing the fabric patterns together to create... a shirt. But the quality of it? Doesn't seem to matter. It's all about design and revolutions. Because, you know, "the kids like it." Do I think switching to Nike would solve that problem either? Nope.
However, it's pretty troubling, at the bottom of all this, to see that adidas doesn't seem to be embarrassed about the fact that their gear can't stand up to any abuse. Or even regular use. Equally troubling is that I doubt Brandon cares very much. Whichever company offers him the most money to strut their logo around is the one he'll pick. I'd like to think that having your crappy gear fall apart is something you'd hold the provider accountable for, but I guess if it provides a revenue stream, who cares?
Welcome to Marketing 101.
I didn't say the team would fix their issues by going back to Nike. I said I'm done with Adidas, that I would purchase my Michigan gear from other sources. I happen to like the older Nike gear better than most of the stuff Adidas has put out. I fail to see how that makes me stunningly ignorant.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:47 PM ^
Nothing in that post was aimed at you personally.
Thanks. I get a bit defensive at times around here.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:22 PM ^
Equally troubling is that I doubt Brandon cares very much. Whichever company offers him the most money to strut their logo around is the one he'll pick. I'd like to think that having your crappy gear fall apart is something you'd hold the provider accountable for, but I guess if it provides a revenue stream, who cares?
Why would you assume Brandon wouldn't care about poor jersey quality? I think he probably would. (Do you think it looks good for the reputation of our athletic department to be associated with shoddy apparel?) What he wouldn't do, though, is publicly complain about it. We are under contract with Adidas for another couple of years and he's not going to throw a public fit about this, which could possibly jeopardize his relationship with them (and/or make other companies reluctant to do business with us).
What I'm curious to know is if other Adidas schools are having jersey quality problems. Has this happened at Kansas, Indiana, ND, et al.?
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:39 PM ^
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^
Exactly. We have evidence that the athletic department doesn't seem all that bothered about it because it's happened multiple times now.
I thought I heard about one of the other Adidas teams haveing the same issue but I cant find it with a google search.
Thanks a lot Bill Martin Obama
He was being facetious. Or at least hope so
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:11 PM ^
Another reason why I will not be buying any Adidas appeal until we drop themSo as long as Adidas pays us $7.5 million a year, you'll boycott them, but once they stop giving us money, you won't? Seems backwards.
HOWEVER, they gotta go. The current basketball uniform situation is totally unacceptable.
Take this with a grain of salt because they are just rumors, but I've heard that the athletic department and Nike are on very bad terms after we switched away from them. Phil Knight said we would come crawling back to them and we pretty much told him fuck you.
SOURCE!!!!
/s
fuck Phil Knight with a tire iron. We'll make our own shit.
That would be cool but I don't think Michigan would choose to miss out on free money ($7.5m I think?)
If Dave Brandon literally has to crawl into Phil Knight's office on his hands and knees and suck his balls, then that's what he needs to do. The fans and players and recruits clearly have a strong preference for Nike. We're too big of a program to get out equipment from the secondary equipment provider.
Besides, Bill Martin was here when we moved away from Nike. If there's any bad blood, it's probably with him.
Thanks for that lovely image of Brandon and Phil Knight, but there's more options than Nike: we could go to Russell or Under Armour.
Now, Under Armour created those Maryland football uni monstrosities, but it seems weird that a humungous school like UM couldn't afford a graphic designer on staff (we have the coin) that can make sure all images put forth by the ath dept promotes whatever image Michigan's wants to promote. I'm sure we could veto dumb uniforms if we wanted to.
Whatever the case, leave Adidas - it's one thing to look bad (which we now do with alarming frequency, which is the AD's fault as much as Adidas). It's another for the jerseys to not even freakin' WORK!
March 24th, 2013 at 12:25 AM ^
Nike gave us walking papers after our deal was up. Look it up and see for yourself.
Go Blue!
Everyone must carry their own cross.
Ich liebe Adidas, die Weltmark mit den drei Streifen. Sehr Gut!