Women in sport lack visibility – research shows thatonly 4% of sports media coverage in the U.S. is dedicated to women’s sport[1]– adidas is tackling this problem head on by pursuing equality and representation in the media.
It’s timely that the Three Stripes is introducing a program in support of women. Actually they are reintroducing a program. There is some irony in the fact that Saturday Night Live actually straddled the line of offesiveness and being informative in establishing a discussion on the pay disparity in the WNBA with a skit.
That skit actually aligns with an article which I’m sharing a bit later in this post, and you should read that. Back to the topic of this post, adidas is continuing their march towards DTC with a plan that hasn’t been laid out as clearly as Nike did in 2017 with their Scale of Sport at Investor’s Day, but if you’re paying attention you can see exactly what is taking shape.
adidas Sets Up at Platform A in Paris | The Battle for Startups In the Sneaker Industry
In the post above I discuss adidas’ investments into startups. Last week adidas announced a focus on giving women more of a presence in sports via their She Breaks Barriers campaign. There is some irony in this as I’ve written consistently that adidas fell short in promoting the WNBA for all of the years they held the sport with uniform sponsorships. When you consider that adidas has Candace Parker and they outfitted the WNBA for ten years “She Breaks Barriers” appears to be lipservice.
However, like I said, if you’ve been paying attention and if you’ve picked up my book (hint, buy that, lol) then you realize that in the book I stated that both brands and retailers have to become media companies. One of the discussion points I raised is that brands should utilize their own sponsored sporting events as delivery systems for content to engage the consumer where they are. In the Platform A post I explained that adidas had just invested into Overtime Sports Network.
Any support of women in sports is important; but adidas missed serious opportunities with the WNBA and with Candace Parker. When adidas first introduced “She Breaks Barriers” I wrote this:
adidas’ ‘She Breaks Barriers’ is Needed | Now Someone Keep Them Honest
Now the program is being reintrouced with a strategy attached and it’s a good thing although it is marketing of course.
Women’s sports are niche. I’ve written for a long time that for brands to compete with Nike they have to operate in the niche areas. adidas is building a foundation utilizing investments into startups, or are they? I assumed, which should never be done, Overtime would be handling the livestream of women’s sports that adidas will be launching soon. This is not the case. adidas is using Intersport who has worked with Under Armour and a host of different companies. This seems counterproductive to establishing ownership of media… which is a different discussion, but definitely one I’d like to ask adidas about (I know someone from there will read this post).
adidas just laid the foundation of their media strategy and it happened silently and if I didn’t write this post, would you have even realized it? Check out the video below and read more about the program on the source link.
These new partnerships and continued initiatives are designed to raise awareness of issues and break down the barriers that stand between girls and sport– namely, lack of access, negative stereotypes, visibility, and inequality. As a part of this continued commitment, adidas will:
- Boost visibility of female athletes in sports media through the partnership with Twitter
- Work with and within local communities to remove barriers to sport at their roots
- Collaborate with women’s sports organizations to drive equality, from grassroots to elite
Beginning in April 2019, the partnership with Twitter and Intersport will feature women’s high school teams from across the country and will continue throughout the year. All six games in the @3StripeLive series will be streamed globally on Twitter and be produced by Intersport. More details on the games will come soon.
