Why do we stay with Russell Athletic?

RamblinRed

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I'm fine with adidas - would have been fine with any of the 3.
Listening to the PC, it sounds like GT is going to get alot of support. adidas is moving permanent staff to Atlanta and will have permanent staff working with GT.
it was also mentioned that GT makes the decisions on outfits and colors and Stansbury said he wants 1 GT gold and 1 GT.

This is big for the SA's. We'll see what the numbers are when the contract is finalized (it is not yet) as the numbers include both cash and merchandise. SA's would like more in Merchandise. One of the complaints with Russell has been they have given little apparel and merchandise to the SA's compared to other schools. adidas has a rep of providing alot of apparel. one NEB fb player mentioned he could go more than 2 weeks without doing laundry due to all the merchandise.

the shoes company is a bigger deal for basketball recruiting than football recruiting due to grassroots basketball. Pastner was very happy at the PC yesterday. He has always been a Nike coach but is really onboard with adidas. He was asked about it in terms of recruiting and he mentioned that the apparel and shoes matter to 17-18 yr olds. He also mentioned that it was better to make this announcement this week than 6 months from now (hint: GT's #1 recruit target is coming in this weekend).

adidas mentioned how they are working to build their grassroots basketball organization in Atlanta. They are moving staff here to do that. They were able to sign 1 Atlanta AAU squad away from Nike this past year and they already have the Atlanta Celtics organization.

adidas also mentioned that GT is the 11th P5 school they have signed and they don't plan to go to more than around 15 so they can give individual attention to each.

i have no idea if it would have been better to go with Nike or UA, but I feel it will be better than Russell who made the decision to get out of the P5 game.
 
orientalnc

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RamblinRed said:
I'm fine with adidas - would have been fine with any of the 3.
Listening to the PC, it sounds like GT is going to get alot of support. adidas is moving permanent staff to Atlanta and will have permanent staff working with GT.
it was also mentioned that GT makes the decisions on outfits and colors and Stansbury said he wants 1 GT gold and 1 GT.

This is big for the SA's. We'll see what the numbers are when the contract is finalized (it is not yet) as the numbers include both cash and merchandise. SA's would like more in Merchandise. One of the complaints with Russell has been they have given little apparel and merchandise to the SA's compared to other schools. adidas has a rep of providing alot of apparel. one NEB fb player mentioned he could go more than 2 weeks without doing laundry due to all the merchandise.

the shoes company is a bigger deal for basketball recruiting than football recruiting due to grassroots basketball. Pastner was very happy at the PC yesterday. He has always been a Nike coach but is really onboard with adidas. He was asked about it in terms of recruiting and he mentioned that the apparel and shoes matter to 17-18 yr olds. He also mentioned that it was better to make this announcement this week than 6 months from now (hint: GT's #1 recruit target is coming in this weekend).

adidas mentioned how they are working to build their grassroots basketball organization in Atlanta. They are moving staff here to do that. They were able to sign 1 Atlanta AAU squad away from Nike this past year and they already have the Atlanta Celtics organization.

adidas also mentioned that GT is the 11th P5 school they have signed and they don't plan to go to more than around 15 so they can give individual attention to each.

i have no idea if it would have been better to go with Nike or UA, but I feel it will be better than Russell who made the decision to get out of the P5 game.
Click to expand...
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
 

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Thanks for your respectful feedback and respectful disagreements on ending the Russell contract early. I still stand by my position - it almost feels like we negotiated with ourselves, like we didn't even approach the idea. If we did even ask, that means the GT alums who founded Russell pushed back on the idea. In that case, I am extremely sad and frustrated with that decision. Russell has been egg on our face for a long time, and honestly with how their business has restructured, had huge layoffs, and largely moved on from college athletics...even more of a reason to be embarrassed of them. I am highly skeptical that we asked or pushed for it and they said no. I think what is more likely is we never pressed the issue and just assumed on our own they wouldn't allow it so lets just be nice and play it out to the end. Which if that's what happened, thats a horrible embarrassment on our side. I mean for Pete's sake, Western Kentucky is in Russell's own home town and they ended their contract and moved on 3 years early. I certainly don't blame Todd - out of everyone he would be the last to get blame. He just got here. But aside from ending the contract early, I still am totally shocked that we're not even getting cleats or shoes or just even anything early. I mean Russell doesn't even make that stuff. This is utterly just mind blowing and ridiculous to me.
 
JacketFromUGA

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I hope we don't get these.
adidas-New-Uniforms-Power-Rangers.jpg
 
dtm1997

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bwelbo said:
Thanks for your respectful feedback and respectful disagreements on ending the Russell contract early. I still stand by my position - it almost feels like we negotiated with ourselves, like we didn't even approach the idea. If we did even ask, that means the GT alums who founded Russell pushed back on the idea. In that case, I am extremely sad and frustrated with that decision. Russell has been egg on our face for a long time, and honestly with how their business has restructured, had huge layoffs, and largely moved on from college athletics...even more of a reason to be embarrassed of them. I am highly skeptical that we asked or pushed for it and they said no. I think what is more likely is we never pressed the issue and just assumed on our own they wouldn't allow it so lets just be nice and play it out to the end. Which if that's what happened, thats a horrible embarrassment on our side. I mean for Pete's sake, Western Kentucky is in Russell's own home town and they ended their contract and moved on 3 years early. I certainly don't blame Todd - out of everyone he would be the last to get blame. He just got here. But aside from ending the contract early, I still am totally shocked that we're not even getting cleats or shoes or just even anything early. I mean Russell doesn't even make that stuff. This is utterly just mind blowing and ridiculous to me.
Click to expand...

Finalizing contracts, doing design work, manufacturing, & logistics take time. They're not turned on & off like a faucet.

How are we negotiating against ourselves when it may be logistically impossible to have months worth of work still to do?

Add to that the context of respect for Russell connections who have endowed scholarships.

We're not getting anything early except a big selling point in recruiting.

Everything about this is just fine.
 

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dtm1997 said:
Finalizing contracts, doing design work, manufacturing, & logistics take time. They're not turned on & off like a faucet.

How are we negotiating against ourselves when it may be logistically impossible to have months worth of work still to do?

Add to that the context of respect for Russell connections who have endowed scholarships.

We're not getting anything early except a big selling point in recruiting.

Everything about this is just fine.
Click to expand...

I really don't know how else to say this. I am not saying, and have never said this is Todd's fault. I have not said and have never said that we should sign a contract and then have uniforms a couple weeks earlier. I am saying this failure on our part is at least a year (probably a couple) in the making. I really don't know what else I can do to be more clear.

If the GT alums who founded Russell refused to let us end the contract sooner or move on earlier, then like I said, that's a big embarrassment on them. Russell had huge restructuring, laying off thousands and thousands of employees and is a completely different business now. If those folks had any real love of Tech and saw what the Russell contract has done to us the last few years, they should have been our biggest advocates to help us move on. Russell doesn't care 2 craps about us.
 
dtm1997

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bwelbo said:
I really don't know how else to say this. I am not saying, and have never said this is Todd's fault. I have not said and have never said that we should sign a contract and then have uniforms a couple weeks earlier. I am saying this failure on our part is at least a year (probably a couple) in the making. I really don't know what else I can do to be more clear.

If the GT alums who founded Russell refused to let us end the contract sooner or move on earlier, then like I said, that's a big embarrassment on them. Russell had huge restructuring, laying off thousands and thousands of employees and is a completely different business now. If those folks had any real love of Tech and saw what the Russell contract has done to us the last few years, they should have been our biggest advocates to help us move on. Russell doesn't care 2 craps about us.
Click to expand...

All I am saying is that your comments don't account properly for a reasonable timeline of how these things are put together & implemented.

Stansbury's announcement as AD was 11 months ago. He didn't start until November or December. So in 9 months he's gotten us to this point. Let's say Russell was willing to let us out of the contract early. It would still take a Herculean effort to be ready for football season.

Also, if we had been trying to get out of it that much earlier, 2 years like you're saying, it would've been MBob in charge of the process. **** that two times.

You wanna place blame, blame the guy in my avatar for being a lazy POS who chose to not take advantage of the early out 4 years ago.

Finally, the GT alums who founded Russell are long dead. Russell has been owned by Warren Buffett for a while.

On the whole, everything about this deal is reasonable, including timing.
 

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dtm1997 said:
Stansbury's announcement as AD was 11 months ago. He didn't start until November or December. So in 9 months he's gotten us to this point. Let's say Russell was willing to let us out of the contract early. It would still take a Herculean effort to be ready for football season.

Also, if we had been trying to get out of it that much earlier, 2 years like you're saying, it would've been MBob in charge of the process. **** that two times.

You wanna place blame, blame the guy in my avatar for being a lazy POS who chose to not take advantage of the early out 4 years ago.

Finally, the GT alums who founded Russell are long dead. Russell has been owned by Warren Buffett for a while.

On the whole, everything about this deal is reasonable, including timing.
Click to expand...

So basically we stayed with the contract until the very last minute to respect the dead? (They said yesterday they wanted to honor the contract because the Russell founders were GT alums.) This is getting worse by the minute.

And yes I'm talking about starting the process a couple years ago. But there is still blame to go around now. Why are we negotiating with dead people?
 
dtm1997

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bwelbo said:
So basically we stayed with the contract until the very last minute to respect the dead? (They said yesterday they wanted to honor the contract because the Russell founders were GT alums.) This is getting worse by the minute.

And yes I'm talking about starting the process a couple years ago. But there is still blame to go around now. Why are we negotiating with dead people?
Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks.
 
New Old Guy

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IMO, dtm has it right. I had heard that Russell would let us end the contract early, but we needed the time to select and negotiate with the right long term partner, and we took the time required. I also understand that one of the providers discussed with us the idea of ending early, but they could not commit to have uniforms ready for the 2017 - 2018 academic year, so we ended up with the timeframe that we have now.
 
GTFLETCH

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RamblinRed said:
I'm fine with adidas - would have been fine with any of the 3.
i have no idea if it would have been better to go with Nike or UA, but I feel it will be better than Russell who made the decision to get out of the P5 game.
Click to expand...

Nike was never interested.... Link Below, UA left the table while Bobblehead was still in town...(I have told folks this before) UA signed Georgia State allowing them to have a piece of the Atlanta Market after Bobblehead messed that up....

Enter new AD, who saved the day as it appears that we did not have to settle for a Nike Transaction and only 1.5M per year... I am excited to see what the new AD was able to get out of Adidas... I am guessing no worse than 2.3M per year and yo to 3.5M!!!

"While Under Armour initially was aggressive in its interest for Tech – Nike, perhaps having significant presence in the market with Georgia already on board, was not – Adidas became the leader through its aligned interests."

Link
http://www.ajc.com/sports/college/how-georgia-tech-and-adidas-came-together/TzFmbOPrvlb0RhoAeTCr3J/
 
GTFLETCH

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Hmm... sounds like Louisville did us a solid and allowed the ADIDAS - GT news to break first... I hope we at least get 4M per year...
 
H-Wade

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How is Louisville worth 16 million a year? Can someone explain this to me? Their basketball program is great but 16 million when they're in a market like Lousiville, Kentucky???
 
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