The piramid of adidas sponsorship A Teams, B Teams, Standard, Third-Party e No Contract
The classification of the sponsorships of a brand is always interesting, especially to understand which clubs are given more weight and with what kind of approach a brand attacks a particular market. After Nike's sponsorship pyramid, Footy Headlines has rebuilt that of adidas. Apparently the structure may look similar, but the three stripes strategies are very different from those practiced by the swoosh. Before going into the details, the criteria on which this division of contracts between brands and clubs is based are 4: the official adidas catalogs, press releases, the strategies common to the main stores of the brand and the internal information that the specialized site has managed to get.
The adidas pyramid is made up of 5 categories: A Teams, B Teams, Standard, Third-Party and No Contract. The first substantial difference lies in the lowest step of the pyramid: no contract teams are the teams that adidas does not manage directly but is simply a supplier; while Nike works a lot with third parties to manage less important contracts, adidas tries to keep control internally on everything and uses little contacts that are not part of the company organization chart. Another point where the strategies of the brands differ is the transition from one category to another: on the one hand Nike remains rigid in its categorizations, on the other adidas considers the first two levels to be very fluid.
Two categories not present in the pyramid deserve a special focus, but which have a great impact on adidas' balance sheet and brand awareness: MLS teams and national teams. The American professional football league has an exclusive contract with adidas and all 26 franchises have benefits that belong half to the B teams and half to the standard teams, therefore with customized kits and a dedicated line created ad hoc only for the teams that exceed certain sales volumes (such as the Los Angeles Galaxy).
As for the national teams, however, there is a sub-pyramid that divides the teams into Premium (Germany, Spain and Argentina) and Standard (Belgium, Sweden, Russia and Colombia).
The sponsorship pyramids of Nike and adidas are apparently similar but show different approaches: the use of third parties in the management of contracts, the structure of the categories itself, the chances of "going up in rank" and the difference in benefits and attention dedicated to club.
