Left Foot, Right Foot, Breathe
The @Candace_Parker Pro Bounce Player Exclusive is available now.
🔶: https://t.co/kxhg7ZdXXB pic.twitter.com/72tICM97hk
— adidas Basketball (@adidasHoops) October 5, 2018
I don’t expect adidas to ever call me and ask for my opinion especially after this post, but I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t bring attention to the glaring issues within adidas Basketball. I hate to make a dedication to Candace, Rocky Top and Coach Summitt into a rant; so I’m going to talk about the fact that adidas did a good thing here by creating a CP3 PE shoe. They set up an in store event to promote the contest and this dope pic collage on Twitter. They even included the page on the adidas website with this caption:
PRO BOUNCE 18 SHOES PARKER
BASKETBALL SHOES INSPIRED BY CANDACE PARKER’S SIGNATURE MOTTO.
“Left, right, breathe” is Candace Parker’s most cherished motto passed down by her late college coach Pat Summit. These basketball shoes pay tribute to the impact Summit had on Parker on and off the court. They’re built with flexible cushioning and feature a premium mesh upper for lightweight stability in the paint. A marbled outsole is finished with graphic Parker details.
Which ends my positivity. Coach Summitt’s name has two Ts. You’re a 20 Billion dollar a year company that very rarely supports WNBA athletes, although you have one of the dopest players in the WNBA and she had an amazing college career at a college that you sponsored with the greatest college basketball coach in the history of the game (shut up UCONN fans and let me vent) and you can’t spell Coach’s name correctly in your marketing materials? You don’t even think highly enough of her to fix it even after @jordanprewitt actually tagged you on October 5th (which makes what I’m writing even worse considering I just got on this on the 7th).
Buuuutttttt what makes this much worse is that I wrote this post almost two years ago:
WNBA Probably Can’t Wait For Nike: Nike Celebrates the UConn Huskies 91 Straight Wins
In this post I wrote these words, “[W]ith all of the accomplishments that Pat Summitt had at Tennessee, the school is an adidas sponsored program, when Coach Pat died Adidas didn’t do shit to celebrate her legacy. When Candace Parker won the WNBA Championship this year, Adidas didn’t capitalize on her being a Summitt player and a champion at all.”
I’m almost willing to bet that the turn out for the adidas event for CP3 wasn’t well attended. (By the looks of the feed from @WNBAKicks I’m right and that doesn’t make me feel good.) However, it’s telling that an event of this magnitude doesn’t have a YouTube video by the brand. It doesn’t have any coverage on the adidas News website. I guess I’m wrong in thinking that it’s “this magnitude” because obviously for adidas it was important, just not important enough to have taken place when Candace was at the height of her career and at one of the lowest moments.
Not to take advantage of the death of Coach Summitt, but when a legend transitions and a player has to overcome the pain that memories create while she has to try and win a WNBA championship… those are the moments where stories HAVE to be told and we all appreciate brands who cement the legacies of legends even if it might appear opportunistic.
This CP3 PE event took place after the WNBA season. It took place during opening week of the NBA. It took place…
This is where I get into why adidas needs to fix basketball. I have a post at the bottom that goes into greater detail about how it can begin to be accomplished. I am also talking about fixing beyond the scope of the NCAA trial featuring an adidas exec… I’m talking grassroots.
- Candace just completed a WNBA season that saw her break a WNBA record for a statline. adidas didn’t cover it.
- The WNBA season is over and adidas signed three new faces to adi Hoops, but they did nothing to promote that.
- The high school season starts this month and adidas launched a PE for the dopest player in the W, but they did it inside of a store and this is where the lack of understanding of basketball has been highlighted in the worst way possible.
The people who are running the division should have sat down and considered the power of a campaign that extends the reach of the brand. This should have been thought out in detail. Every year high school teams across the country struggle to outfit their teams. I know. I was a high school head coach who had his teams wear adidas. Every year we (coaches) shop like couponing parents for the best deal. What a good adidas Basketball group would have done (what I would have done):
- The event would have been moved and held on the first official day of practice for high school teams.
- The event would have been held at a gym.
- The event would have been a coach and players’ clinic.
- At the event adidas reps would have been available and team packages would have been available at 50% off. Basically wholesale direct to the coach and athletes. I know this could have been done inside of the store, but at a gym the gear could be tested by athletes.
- The event would have featured all adidas signed WNBA players to enhance branding. All coaches would have received an adidas motivational package for their offices and locker rooms, with stickers.
- The branding for the 2018-19 season would have been a throwback to ‘brotherhood’ and stated, “Basketball is a Sisterhood” with five adidas players looking over their shoulders on the posters.
- Coaches would have been given packages to order adidas branded tee-shirts created for their schools as a fundraiser.
- All players would be given adidas basketball camp tees.
- An on-court instruction would have been organized for the seniors in the program establishing an event for the future as the seniors would have been instructed by WNBA players. (There isn’t a violation in anything I’ve written here).
- Segments would have been live streamed and on the adidas site where the Candace Parker shoe is being offered Team Bank Colors in every color associated with Parker’s high school to professional teams would be featured (That covers almost ever color). Also on the site would be team sale options for footwear with a coach’s log-in for discounted team pricing. (I know this chips at Eastbay and team order catalogs, but adidas is not in a position to play round with DTC.)
Candace deserved this, but I said it before, Nike is dominating and the industry needs adidas Basketball to be better. All brands need to be better.
