2014-2015 global football (soccer) season is gradually facing he climax over next eight weeks.
Speaking about next season might be a bit premature, but we will see some changes at the 2015-2016 season as we will lose three great partnerships with popular clubs. Man.U will walk with three stripes, PSV will wear double diamond and Celtics will choose the newcompetitor for us, New Balance.
New Balance taps into football business
Today, I want to mention about New Balance. Technically, traditional American running footwear brand owns Warrior Sports who signed a $39 million a year deal to sponsor Liverpool for six years. So probably I should say New Balance/Warrior Sports. As you may recognized so far, they have been aggressively making contracts with some good players including ex-Nike and ex-Adidas players who are playing in England premier league, and all of them are wearing the new boots that has a big visible N logo in recent games.
This chart in the article by Boston Globe was interesting for me. Nike and Adidas globally earned 65% business share in Football equipment market in 2014, but in other words there's still other 29% white space other competitors are eating part of pie.
Honestly making a success in Football business seems difficult. Reebok attempted to join with legendary Argentina striker, Gabriel Batistuta and Manchester's star Ryan Giggs, and FILA also tried with Japanese giocatore, Hidetoshi Nakata almost ten years ago, but eventually both of them failed.
But New Balance has better manufacture than Reebok and FILA at least in running category, and they seems pretty popular as sports/street culture in British and European market. As of now, I think they have some advantage than another upcoming competitor, Under Armor who signed Tottenham Hotspur. That said, although it's most likely impossible to be immediately a big competitor with Nike and Adidas, I think they have a chance to be like existing Puma around WC2016 if they are able to continue to strategically spend their passion through product innovation and budget.