Who knew that the NFL season opener between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers would serve as a battleground between adidas and Jordan Brand? Both the three stripes and the Jumpman had something special for their athletes that were competing on Thursday night but one clearly overshadowed the other and it wasn’t even close.
For the past several years now, adidas has built up their football game through grassroots marketing and celebrity endorsements, even going so far as to call the movement “cleathead culture.” Meanwhile, Jordan Brand has been making their mark on the gridiron with their solid cast of NFL stars, retros on the field and most recently, becoming the official outfitter of Michigan. Sure, it will always be a little weird to see a Jumpman logo on a Michigan jersey, but then again, we had the same hang-ups when baseball players, golfers and NASCAR drivers had the same logo and now it’s as a normal part of a uniform as the three stripes or the swoosh.
As you might might expect on NFL Opening Night, when attention on football is near its peak (surpassed only by the Super Bowl) and the TV and social media ratings are expected to be massive, adidas and Jordan Brand had to do something to make an impact and get the people talking. We knew the Jumpman was going to unleash a new set of retro cleats and sure enough, they introduced know what their athletes – from Dez Bryant to Joe Haden and more – were going to be wearing this season via a tweet and Nike press release…
A thousand retweets and over two thousand likes nearly 24 hours later. Not bad for Jordan Brand, right? It gets the sneakerheads and the blogs talking about how fire they look and how they wish they didn’t have cleats so they could get a shot at wearing them. Carolina’s Thomas Davis would be first up with his black and blue PE pair on display last night. It’s a nice show of their dominance and hold on the sneaker world. You know, if only Kanye West hadn’t gotten involved…
Earlier in the day, adidas took their shot and broke Sneaker Twitter by sending reigning Super Bowl MVP Von Miller a pair of Yeezys. That’s to be expected nowadays, though. Almost everybody at Team adidas is gifted a pair of Yeezys like it’s a rite of passage or something. But this was a little different because Miller’s pair is no ordinary Yeezy. This 750 had cleats and it’s not a custom either…
Huh, almost 17.5k retweets and nearly 23k in likes. That’s a lot no matter how you break down those numbers and to make it even more of a shocker, Miller’s follower count is less than 10% of Jordan Brand’s. Miller wore the Yeezys during warm-ups, it was posted on Snapchat and his Broncos won the game. Mission accomplished…
Now if you’re a curmudgeon who steadfastly believes that retweets and likes don’t matter or that this was a fluke, take a look at the response to DeAndre Hopkins and Adrian Peterson when they posted their 350 Cleats on Twitter today. So if you’re keeping score, that’s an All-Pro linebacker, a young rising star wideout and one of the greatest running backs of all time. All we need now is a quarterback and we’ve got a squad. Anybody check Aaron Rodger’s Twitter to see what he’s up to?
If Kanye is serious about turning the Yeezy brand into his own personal Ralph Lauren and making them available for everybody by opening stores all across the country, this kind of excitement for his brand in the sports world has to be encouraging. Will Yeezy products geared towards actual athletic pursuits be as well-received when they’re easily attainable at his stores? Personally I can’t wait to find out and to see if these “little things” will light a fire under the current leaders of the pack.
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