adidas Soccer today announced the expansion of their Tango League Qualifying tournaments to five new cities across the United States in the first half of 2019, providing a wider platform for creators
Source: adidas Soccer Expands Tango League Tournaments to Five New U.S. Cities in 2019
When you’re in a global competition and you have a solid grasp on the market in your backyard, where do you find growth? In a market that helped you to gain ground of course. adidas had a fast ascent and descent from 2014 to 2017 but the brand has been stumbling lately in the U.S. adidas is constantly on clearance. Their rival is dropping one amazing piece of tech in footwear every quarter and completely dominating footwear news. What does adidas do to counter the news of Nike’s new self lacing basketball shoe? Well, they didn’t exactly counter the news… they released the information on their Tango League expansion on January 11th; four days before Nike’s new Adapt tech was announced, but the information went unnoticed. The information hasn’t been shared by hardly any sneaker sites.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a positive for the brand. What I’ve found is that any brand attempting to take on Nike has very little chance to do so with a tit for tat strategy. The best way to challenge and gain any ground against Nike has to be done via the niche. In the U.S. soccer isn’t exactly the leading sport. It is however going to grow because as parents begin to realize the problems with football fewer sports moms are allowing their kids to participate in the sport. Soccer is inherently a growth area as the U.S. gets more diverse and the Latino population grows. If sports moms are truly becoming ‘soccer’ moms leagues like the Tango created by adidas offers a number of opportunities for the brand to capitalize on.
If you’ve never heard of Tango and Glitch here is a post I wrote on whether it could be integrated in the U.S. It’s a really good thing to see adidas doing something that could have stronger roots than simply rolling out interesting product. adidas is attempting to go grassroots. It will be interesting to watch.
Can adidas Successfully Integrate the Glitch and Tango Concept Into the U.S.?