{"id":689213,"date":"2026-01-19T17:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/689213\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T17:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:53:12","slug":"college-football-playoff-national-championship-game-validates-adidas-deeper-push-into-college-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/689213\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Playoff national championship game validates Adidas\u2019 deeper push into college football"},"content":{"rendered":"

The winner of the CFP National Championship tonight will hand Adidas its first champion in the sport<\/a> since Tennessee in 1998, marking an \u201cimportant moment\u201d for the company, which has \u201cwaded into deeper water in college football lately,\u201d according to Zach Osterman of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. Nike has \u201clong been an apparel leader in the college football space,\u201d but within the last year, Adidas has \u201cpushed competitively\u201d into college football. Both Penn State<\/a> and Tennessee<\/a> announced during summer they would leave Nike for Adidas on \u201clucrative partnerships that begin with the new athletic year in July.\u201d Now, Adidas has the two schools in Indiana and Miami set to face off in tonight\u2019s CFP title game. Adidas North America VP\/Sports Marketing Chris McGuire said, \u201cWe\u2019ve shown these universities what adidas is capable of in the new era of college athletics as a truly comprehensive apparel partner that is seeing success on the biggest stages, as you see with Indiana and Miami.\u201d McGuire added that Adidas \u201cfeels an escalating sense of \u2018momentum\u2019 in college football.\u201d McGuire: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say we ever expected this specific outcome, but we absolutely believed in the trajectory we were on. This is a clear validation of our long-term strategy in college football.\u201d Osterman noted Adidas will owe IU \u201cat least $375,000 in bonuses following the conclusion of this season\u201d and the school would be \u201cowed another $250,000 if it wins Monday night\u201d (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 1\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A PERFECT STORM: Adidas North America President John Miller said tonight\u2019s game will be a \u201cfour-hour Adidas commercial.\u201d He added, \u201cYou couldn\u2019t ask for a better script. From a brand perspective, we couldn\u2019t have either. … My boss, the global CEO, Bj\u00f8rn Gulden, is coming in from Germany to go to the game. I\u2019m not sure how many college football games he\u2019s been on the sidelines for. It\u2019ll be a first for him, too.\u201d Miller said part of the \u201clure to Penn State and Tennessee coming to the brand was how aggressive\u201d McGuire and his team \u201chave been around NIL.\u201d Miller: \u201cRewind all the way to August 2024 when we launched the (Patrick) Mahomes + Texas Tech + Adidas triangle of a partnership from an NIL perspective. Chris and the team have been doing this for a couple of years now, and they\u2019ve really done a great job.\u201d He added universities \u201crecognize that, the work\u201d that McGuire has done with Adidas Dir\/NCAA Sports Marketing Jim Murphy and the team. Miller: \u201cWe feel like we\u2019re on the forefront of what what we do there\u201d (JOHNCANZANO.com, 1\/15<\/a>). <\/p>\n

REPRESENTING THE BRAND: ON3\u2019s Nick Schultz noted IU QB Fernando Mendoza and WR Elijah Sarratt, who both signed NIL deals with Adidas, \u201cshowed some love to their teammates\u201d as they \u201cgifted the Hoosiers adidas gear.\u201d The two \u201cgave their teammates adidas gift packs\u201d which included \u201cHarden Volume 10 sneakers, Purechills, Control 5s, apparel and custom Indiana suitcases\u201d (ON3, 1\/18<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The winner of the CFP National Championship tonight will hand Adidas its first champion in the sport since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[331,3157,7,41841,49],"class_list":["post-689213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-college-football","tag-deals","tag-football","tag-name-image-and-likeness","tag-ncaa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115923046258358463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}