Are Nike and Adidas Hurting Soccer in America?

I recently turned AdBlock Plus off on my browser and as a result I've been bombarded with Nike ads for US Soccer on Myspace asking me to Join the Revolution. This is part of the Don't Tread on Me campaign they've been running with for quite a while.



Problems with this campaign: the soccer ball that the Don't Tread on Me snake is clutching looks like a volleyball. Yes, people in other countries would know better, and people who play in this country would know better too. But the last time I checked, soccer is struggling in this country- so why make something that is completely alien to most of the population even more confusing? My boyfriend, who played in the Classic League (for those of you who don't know about youth soccer, the Classic League is one of two leagues in this country where competitive soccer is played at the highest level), had a Don't Tread on Me Nike poster in his old apartment. I had been working in Major League Soccer for over four months before I finally asked what the ad was for. To me, and most Americans, soccer balls have those black hexagons all over them- they don't resemble volleyballs.

Another problem: Join the Revolution? You mean the New England Revolution, Boston's MLS team (who, like every other MLS team, are sponsored by Adidas)? Nike has gone after Adidas in previous ads as an attempt to make inroads in the world soccer market, a market that Adidas dominates in. This ad may or may not be a shot at Adidas, but I think Nike's use of the term 'Revolution' is a bit insulting to Major League Soccer, and counter productive to the league's efforts, albeit piss poor efforts, to popularize soccer in this country.

Before I go on, I should clarify Nike and Adidas' roles in soccer in the US. From MLS.com:

In November of 2004, adidas, Major League Soccer and Soccer United Marketing signed an exclusive 10 year partnership agreement making adidas the official athletic sponsor and licensed product supplier for MLS. Under the agreement, which is the largest in the league's history, adidas holds the exclusive rights to outfit all of the league's teams, and provide the League with the Official Match Ball, +Teamgeist MLS. adidas also has exclusive rights to sales of all MLS League and team-branded product, including apparel and equipment.

adidas, an MLS partner since the league's inception, currently sponsors the MLS Player Combine, Generation adidas, MLS Futbolito, and the annual MLS SuperDraft. adidas was a charter supplier of three MLS teams - D.C. United (Washington, D.C.), Columbus Crew (Columbus, OH), and the Kansas City Wizards (Kansas City, MO).

As the worldwide leader in the sport, adidas has developed a near 50 percent market share in the U.S. soccer industry. Building on adidas' longstanding relationship with U.S. Youth Soccer, adidas and Major League Soccer will develop marketing initiatives over the next several years to connect even more deeply with soccer fans in the United States in an effort to create and inspire an American Soccer Nation.

Nike, on the other hand, sponsors US Soccer. You may be asking yourself, what's the difference? Soccer is unique from every other major sport played in this country in that it is played all over the world, and not in a half-assed manner the way basketball is. Most developed countries have their own leagues, but they also have a national team that plays in FIFA 'friendlies' and competes in the World Cup. So Nike sponsors the US National team.

Marketing communications for both US Soccer and the MLS are handled by Soccer United Marketing (SUM). Did you catch those 'MLS Futbol. Football. Soccer.' ads? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Nike and Adidas have substantial advertising budgets, SUM, not so much. So while both of these brands are competing for market share in the US, it's sort of like they're pitting MLS and US Soccer against each other. Such a thing would never happen in Europe or South America because soccer-excuse me, football fans have been cheering for both their national team and league teams for generations. No sport in America has this tradition, and it's one of the problems that the sport faces in this country. The Olympics don't count- the most watched Olympic sporting events in this country are swimming and ice skating, neither of which have a substantial following in non-Olympic years.

So back to problems with the ads. As I said, the use of the term Revolution is what bothers me the most. After watching a commercial here the sub-text of this campaign gets clearer: it's aimed at people who watch soccer, just not US soccer because the level of play is sub-par compared to just about every other nation. "Wake up America, you have your own team." Not league- team. Most of the players shown in the commercial play in Europe (except Landon Donovan, but he couldn't cut it Europe so he came back to play for the Galaxy). So don't bother watching MLS, you know they suck, but hey the American national team isn't so bad, lots of these guys play in Europe.

So is nationalism the answer to popularizing soccer in this country, even though there's no tradition of support for a national team sport in the US? Or will Major League Soccer raise the level of play by actually paying people decent money to play for them (the salary cap system in MLS is very complicated, and the average salary is around $40,000 a year)? My guess is neither. But pitting the two against each other in order to gain market share wont help either brand in the long run.

Upside: these ads look really good. In fact they look better than anything else I've ever seen US Soccer/MLS related, whether it was created by a league team or SUM. But that's what happens when you hire advertising professionals (Wieden+Kennedy) instead of creating ads in-house. However, I think the people who created these ads don't fully understand the complexities of soccer in the United States, or particularly care about establishing it as a major sport that could eventually compete with the NBA, NFL and MLB. If they did, they wouldn't have used the phrase 'Join the Revolution' or recognize the putrid level of American play vs. all other nations. But then that gets into the defeatist attitude that pervades all American soccer marketing communications. I'll save that for another blog.