If you have been visiting most World Cup websites (like this one) you probably have noticed the Nike & US Soccer “Don’t Tread On Me” campaign. The web banner features a snake curled around a ball that menacingly warns others to “Beware” and has a countdown clock numbering the days/hours/minutes until “US Soccer Attacks”. Problem is the clock is sitting at 00:00:00 and the US still hasn’t attacked.
The consensus is that the clock needs to be reset, the question is should they put 60 minutes up on the clock counting down the remaining time until US v. Italy, or add four more years until South Africa 2010?
Nike clearly wishes they were more influential with Bruce Arena's line-up, seeing their poster boy Eddie Johnson relegated to the bench the first half of the Czech game. Even worse, budding rap-star Dempsey hasn’t seen any minutes yet and golden child Freddy Adu is stuck back home playing for the MLS in the mausoleum known as RFK. In this case a Nike-centric starting line-up couldn’t be worse than what we saw on Monday.
How much does a brand affect play on the field? Obviously not that much. But I did some addition and like the manufactures points in Formula-1, here are the team by team, brand by brand results.
Marathon
G:2 W:2 L:0 D:0 P:6 Average:3.00
Nike
G:11 W:8 L:2 D:1 P:25 Average:2.73
Umbro
G:4 W:3: L:0 D:1 P:10 Average:2.50
Adidas
G:9 W:5 L:2 D:2 P:17 Average:1.89
Puma
G:17 W:2 L:11 D:4 P:10 Average:0.59
Joma
G:2 W:0 L:2 D:0 P:0 Average:0.00
Lotto
G:3 W:0 L:3 D:0 P:0 Average:0.00
updated through today's Portugal v. Iran game
Clearly these stats are warped due to the fact that Ecuador, the only team sporting the Marathon brand, hasn’t faced any real opposition and Puma will make jerseys for any third-world country. Not much to take into account, just some interesting stats I thought I would blog for your enjoyment.
Maybe not a great time to be marketing the US national team with the whole snake and the "don't tread on me" thing. Apparently unbeknownst to the Nike Superbrain Global Marketing Propaganda Department(TM), the snake is a very derogatory name now associated with America, as in the United Snakes of America, I'm afraid this marketing image being shoved down everyones throat by Nike will further this image. As to Puma kitting out "third world countries" whats wrong with that? As far as I can tell Nike is only interested in dressing colonizers while Puma dresses the colonized, I'll buy Puma every time. Cheers!
Well I really liked the snake concept and the rekindling of Ben Franklin's "don't tread on me" motto. After all it's what Americans think of it and not the other country's supporters. I thought that the Nike snake shield they made was good and should have replaced the one we currently use.
Personally I think that the current US Soccer logo is pretty fugly --- it's flashy in that late '80s "USA! USA!" kind of way. It would go better on a guy with a handlebar mustache and flag pants.
I like soccer. I watch a lot of soccer. Sometimes I play soccer and it's a sad site.
I pretty much exclusively support Liverpool after being deserted by the MLS (see: San Jose Clash… I mean Earthquakes… I mean Houston 1836? errr… Dynamo, whatever). I’ve been following the game since 1995, and in-depth since about 2002. I’m currently a senior in college at Arizona and catch Sounders games over the summer in Seattle. So yup, that’s about it.
