When World Cup hype reaches its peak in Ma and June of next year, it will difficult to remember more than one company makes soccer balls. Or boots. Or kits and other equipment. Once World Cup 2014 kicks off it will be all stripes, no swooshes, just as it’s been for every tournament since 1970. Since Mexico 1970, adidas has become inextricably linked with soccer’s main event. To see another name on the ball would be like seeing Michael Jordan lacing up a pair of Reeboks.
So it’s little surprise that today, at a ceremony in Moscow, FIFA and adidas announced their partnership has been extended until at least 2030, a duration during which the apparel company will be the continue to develop the official match ball and hold licensing rights to ‘FIFA World Cup’.
Or, in corporate speak, per adidas’s Thursday release:
For many fans, this news will get a decided “meh.” For others, the apparel and fashion surrounding the game is an essential part of their soccer lives. What’s going on with the new boots? Who’s developing which team’s kits? How many panels will the next ball have? FIFA’s choice of partners is a big (if rarely discussed) part of that world.
FIFA’s continuing relationship with adidas is major news mostly because of the alternate possibilities. Had FIFA signed a deal with, say, Nike, it would have marked a huge shift in sports marketing, let alone soccer branding. With the FIFA-adidas partnership set to last five more World Cups, it’s almost impossible to imagine another name have such prominence at soccer’s main event.
With today’s announcement, adidas’s rights will extend into a 60th year, a sustained relationship the Germany-based company touted in announcing today’s extension.
“Over the last 40 years, adidas and FIFA have worked closely together to develop football worldwide,” adidas CEO Herbert Hainer noted. “Therefore, it was a natural step for us to extend one of the most successful partnerships in the history of sports marketing. We are happy and proud that our close relationship with FIFA will continue.”
Understandably so. It would be a major low to adidas, a company built on its soccer presence, to lose the rights to the World Cup. Thankfully, FIFA seems in no hurry to make that chance. The two will be together for another 16 years. If not more.
