Adidas Was Shoe-In in NCAA Game

Indiana University basketball Coach Bobby Knight couldn’t spark his team to victory in the NCAA Men’s Tournament semifinal game Saturday night, but he looked good trying.

At least he looked good to sneaker maker Adidas, which got nearly $3 million worth of free exposure from display of its logos--including the one on Knight’s trademark red sweater--on the CBS broadcast of Indiana’s loss to Duke University.

With both Knight and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski under contract to Adidas, every shoe on the court sported the three-stripe logo.

Joyce Julius Associates, an Ann Arbor, Mich., sponsorship consulting firm, said the Adidas logo was clear and in focus for 4 minutes and 59 seconds during the telecast. At $300,000 per 30-second commercial, that exposure translates to $2,990,000 in promotional value.

In the other semifinal game, it was all Nike, as the Beaverton, Ore., shoe giant backed both Cincinnati and winner Michigan. (Nike also outfitted Stanford University, champion of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s Women’s Tournament.)

Nike used what might be called a brute force approach to wedge its foot into Monday night’s championship game, backing 29 of the 64 teams in the tournament. Adidas, meanwhile, played a finesse game, with only two schools under contract, Indiana and Duke. Others prominent in the foot race were Converse (20 schools), Reebok (six) and L.A. Gear (three).