M brand being devalued

but is it really that big a deal?

What do you want, a cookie? This is like, your opinion, man. Sorry you were born in 1842, it must be rough.

On a more serious note, have you seen the Nike pro-combat jerseys? Adidas might not be as popular as Nike, but you're kidding yourself if you think that Nike wouldn't be trying to "modernize" the brand or do some sort of pseudo-throwback.

They're shirts. Go think about something that actually matters.

Good luck in your fight against a corporate world that is well on its way to putting a stamp on every morsel of life. 

I mean, I hate a lot of the adidas stuff, and the new white hockey jerseys are pretty much terrible, but at the end of the day...  I'm just going to keep wearing the cache of Nike stuff I still have hanging around and not spend 30 bucks on a t-shirt again.  The University is getting a crap ton of money out of this, and that's worth something, I guess.

If I understand this correctly, you e-mailed Dave Brandon, but addressed him as he would address himself in the third person?* Is this supposed to be ironic?

**ATTN: English majors, or otherwise enlightened people: what is this concept? I'm imagining receving an e-mail like this:

Dear Michael,

I'd like to strongly protest what Michael is doing to the Michigan brand. If you could please express to him my strong displeasure, I would be most grateful. He is ruining my ability to enjoy life.

Sincerely,

UAUM

P.S. I'm intentionally trying to make your head explode.

OP you must understand. Opinions are only allowed on this board if it is pro DB/Hoke. If you in anyway do not like something pertaining to either of these two men keep it to yourself. If you want to be part of the in crowd then make a post bashing RR in some way. Then you'll receive numerous pats on the back for your opinion.

Edit: See what I mean. You can't even point out how it works here without getting negged.

Because stuff pre-Adidas never ever had a Nike logo on it...People need to get over themselves and realize that its still just a shirt. A shirt. Its not like, "Welcome to Adidas Stadium" or the "Michigan Adidas Union." Its just a shirt/hat/jacket. If you don't like it, don't buy it. No one is taking the money out of your pocket and making you buy it.

I for one like the Adidas stuff. The large fits me better than any other brand out there and I have an amazing 1/4 zip pullover that I love and never saw anything like it when Nike was around.

1. Adidas signed a contract with us that pays $7.5 million per year last I checked so that they can put their logo on the apparal they produce for the univeristy, which includes the shirts you are talking about. Furthermore, adidas is contractually obligated to ensure that the Michigan contract at least matches the biggest contract of its type made with any other university, meaning that if adidas were to sign a bigger contract with, say, Penn State, they'd have to increase our contract to Penn State's level. As such, we are making a ton of money (somewhere around a third of our TV revenue) to simply incorporate the adidas logo on these shirts. That is not devaluing the block M brand. It is increasing its value.

2. This contract was negotiated by Bill Martin, not Dave Brandon.

and that mascots, alternative uniforms, etc that detract from tradition hurt the brand. If this is a one time thing, it's not the end if the world. If we turn into the football equivalent of a shitty NHL team and start rolling out ugly alternative uniforms every time we're on national tv, then everybody better get off my lawn.

To sum up this post....

Waaaaaa!

I'm tired of all this bitching. You do realize that retail stores like Meijer, Walmart, etc. have been carrying cheap looking shit for decades right?

How soon we forget that Michigan has, for a long long time, been agressive in marketing its "brand" in corporate ways. Don Canham, perhaps our greatest AD of all time, was famous for this.... he took a lot of crap for it at the time ("cheapening the M brand").

If anything, Brandon is picking up the Canham mantle.

a nice Champion reverse weave sweatshirt that says MICHIGAN across the front in old maize letters and be happy.

Just don't buy the Adidas stuff if you don't like it.

Did you put this in block quotes so we wouldn't think this was your own opinion? If so, that was the smartest thing that you did on this post.

Well, in recent years, the world has shifted more and more to the "money can be exchanged for goods and services" economic model. So when Adidas said, "we would like to give you a shit-ton of money, Bill Martin said to himself, "gee, we could exchange that money for such things as gigantic-ass new scoreboards, stadium renovations, and better coffee at Schembechler Hall. Deal!."

Now, Adidas was also aware of this shifting economic paradigm, and they demanded that in exchange for the shit-ton of money and free gear, they are allowed to put a little logo in the upper corner. Michigan reluctantly agreed.  Dave Brandon then became AD, and said to himself, "gee, as fun as a giant breach of contract dispute with a huge apparel company would be, it might be pretty time consuming. And they'd take back their shit-ton of money.  Plus then we'd have to find a new sponsor. Or I'd have to make the stuff myself, but I'm not very handy with a sewing machine.  Okay, let's stick with Adidas."

If this troubles you, I completely understand.  If you go to the MDen, they probably still have a few replica 1997 Rose Bowl jerseys.  I'm sure those are free from any other corporate tradem...

Oh. I see what's happening here. DAMN DAVE BRANDON AND HIS TIME MACHINE

Believe it or not, I bought my fave M t-shirt last fall at Van Boven.  Local dude makes em for VB.  Navy with Maize print, it has the M logo superimposed into the SuperMan logo on the chest and "16" on the back but the number is made out of shoelaces forming the two numbers.  It gets lots of love whenever I wear it. 

Also, for Adidas-haters, If I remember correctly Jason Carr (Lloyd's son) is the Adidas rep for UM.  Just sayin. . . .

GBOD!

However, the worse sin is the fact that the vintage circle block M in the yellow circle on so many decent looking shirts...

I think "worser" would've been a better word choice.

/S

Understand is how anyone thought Dave Brandon was going to help brand M better??? He helped run dominoes for the last 17 years. I'll give dominoes the thin crust. It's good now but the rest of their pizza is poop on a stick. 17 years. Their pizza has been shit the whole time.

I have never been a fan of the newer "burn-my-retina" yellow that Addidas and Nike love.

That aside, I was in MDen a few weeks ago, and was looking for the old-school traditional blue hat that Bo Schembechler wore for like 20 years.  Simple blue cap with the traditional block M that doesn't look like it was put on growth hormone.

Nothing.....

since that #$#$% Canham gave away all those seats to fill the stadium, and started marketing to wimmin.Then he turned around and hired that guy from Ohio, for crying out loud.

ITT: OP doesn't understand block quotes.

bigger things in life to complain about.  I like some of Nike's stuff.  I didn't like some of Nike's stuff.  And now, I like some of Adidas' stuff and I don't like some of Adidas' stuff.  And the best thing about it is the world still goes around each day.

I understand adidas has a 3 stripe logo...but do you need to incorporate 3 stripes into everything? there are 3 stupid stripes are every where.

Frankly, there's something troubling with the idea that a major university needs to be a "brand" at all. The University of Michigan is in fact not a product generally available in the marketplace; the consumer can't buy a Michigan degree. One is admitted to Michigan by virtue of various combinations of effort, testing, etc. (including athletic effort). One then earns the degree.

Ultimately, it is the value of that degree that should be the "brand," but that's in an ideal world, where one would also want any items bearing the institution's symbols to reflect the value of that degree.

So in that world, maybe you'd have to have Armani or some other great designer create the school's football fan apparel.

However, reality is that very few people could buy it, and selling it wouldn't do the athletic department much good. So they license the symbols to mass-manufacturers of sporting goods like Adidas, and if that means obnoxious-looking trucker hats with the M logo, well, that kind of sucks but it is what we have for now.

Just for grins I went to the Harvard web store to see the kind of merch they're offering, and it's actually a lot more like the stuff that was available from Michigan suppliers in the 60s-70s; more traditional looking hats, Ts, sweats, etc. 

So it is possible for a university to restrict the available offerings to more traditional (and some might say classy) things, but Brandon isn't going to be the guy to do that because rightly or wrongly he views his job to be raising as much money as possible, and not being very picky about the quality of the resulting image.

For people who don't like the bright Maize, when I painted my room I went to Home Depot and put my bright ass Maize Rage shirt to the machine and it copied the exact color and I painted my walls in that color. Get over it. I love the Maize. It is intense and the Blue cools it down. Best two fucking colors on the planet.

I also like adidas. The only negative things are those goofy looking Player Hats the elephant tusk-Maize piping on the hips of the Football road jerseys. But as I've seen from practices, they're using the TechFit jerseys that don't have it anymore.

Every year for as long as I've been alive, they've come out with new gear.  Some of it is terrible.  Some of it is awesome.  This year is no different.  People just like bitching.