UW, Adidas signs contract for gear and apparel

ARLINGTON, Texas – The University of Wyoming is now an Adidas school – for all of its sports.

UW announced Wednesday an eight-year contract with the Portland, Oregon, based company to supply footwear, apparel and accessories for all 17 of its men's and women's sports.

The contract starts June 1.

UW athletics director Tom Burman said the contract is worth $5.75 million, and could be extended one year. However, most of the money in the contract involves product, not actual dollars.

Burman said UW will be given $950,000 by Adidas in the first year, $400,000 of which is transitional dollars as the school switches from gear from other companies. Burman said the $950,000 should cover costs to make the transition and to purchase all the gear his sports programs need from Adidas for the 2018-19 sports year.

UW football and men's basketball has worn Nike gear since 2009. Women's basketball has worn Under Armour gear the past few years.

"This (is) mostly a product deal," Burman said during a phone interview Wednesday. "Not necessarily in the first year, but years after that, it will save us money because we were buying product under our current deals.

"We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on product for all of our sports across the board. Even with our Nike deal, we had to supplement it with cash. In the long-term, it will be a savings to us and enable us to reallocate dollars in our budget."

Burman said the money UW gets from Adidas to purchase its gear goes up incrementally over the life of the contract. It also includes $100,000 in what Adidas calls "marketing activation."

"It is up to (Adidas) how they spend it, but what they want to do in the first two years to drive retail sales on our campus, in our venues, in our games, on our website or any other source they think is valuable to help drive sales of Wyoming product," Burman said.

There are some financial incentives in the contract for UW.

Burman said if UW football, men's basketball or women's basketball wins a conference championship, it will get $10,000 from Adidas. There also are monetary bonuses if UW has a coach of the year, reaches an NCAA tournament and beats a team from a Power 5 conference ranging from $5,000 to $15,000. If the men's basketball team reaches the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, it gets $50,000.

In the Olympic sports, and wrestling as a specific example, Burman said for every student-athlete that qualifies for the NCAA Championships, it receives $3,000 in product.

Burman also said the more gear UW sells, the more money it gets from Adidas.

Burman said UW talked with Nike and Under Armour about an exclusive equipment and apparel contract. He said when UW faced its first round of state-mandated budget cuts two years ago, he tried to renegotiate its contract with Nike with no success. Burman also said he tried to get an exclusive apparel and gear deal with various companies as far back as six to seven years ago.

Burman said UW's football uniforms this season "will look very similar with some slight changes" compared to the past two seasons. He said that other sports "will have the ability to create their own personality" to their uniforms.

But one thing will be consistent with the uniforms for all of UW's sports.

"We are going to wear brown and gold," Burman said. "Those are our colors and we're going to wear them with pride."

Burman added that prior to this contract being finalized, Adidas did not produce gear and apparel in brown and gold "off the rack," and invested "significant dollars" to show they could produce gear with those colors.

When asked what kind of feedback he received from UW coaches and student-athletes, Burman said: "When there is change there is heartburn for some, but the good news is Adidas is the hottest brand out there. You look at the stock prices of Adidas versus the others in the sports apparel industry and they're blowing up. It is a cool brand with the young generation right now. There was not much pushback from our 400 student-athletes. Most of them are thrilled."

Of the 12 schools that play football in the Mountain West, UW and San Jose State are the only ones exclusively with Adidas. However, Adidas is associated with more than 100 colleges in the country. Some of them include: Arizona State, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Miami, Mississippi State, Nebraska, North Carolina State and Texas A&M. It also has marketing agreements with the National Basketball Association, National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer.

In September of 2017, the FBI announced the arrest of 10 individuals, including Adidas executive James Gatto, on various corruption and fraud charges within the sport of college basketball.

Burman said questions and concerns from UW's Board of Trustees came up about that during the negotiations with Adidas.

"We operate in a different space and we make sure our coaches are not engaging in activities like that," Burman said. "I believe Adidas has a handle on what really happened and how that situation transpired, and it expressed that to me during this process.

"I felt comfortable with their solutions going forward."