Nike gets more national jerseys than Adidas for the first time.

 Nike will supply the kit for
more teams than Adidas for the first time ever at this
year’s World Cup finals. The two sports giants will throw Lionel Messi against
Cristiano Ronaldo and Spain against Brazil to see
who can claim a bigger chunk of the multi-billion dollar
market for football boots, shirts and shorts. Both say they are the leaders, but analysts say Nike
is making an aggressive push in key football markets.
The company says it could soon earn more from
soccer than basketball — the sport that launched
Nike as a global force. Adidas of Germany has traditionally dominated
soccer pitches and is an official World Cup sponsor.
Adidas will have a “dominant role” at the finals in
Brazil, chief executive Herbert Hainer said this week. Nike, which leads in sales of all sports goods, only
entered the football market in the 1990s but has since
made stunning progress. It will be providing kit for 10 teams at this year’s
World Cup finals — Australia, Brazil, Croatia,
England, France, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal,
South Korea and United States. Adidas has dropped to eight teams from 10 in 2010. It
still has a formidable line-up however, with reigning
champions Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Germany,
Japan, Mexico, Nigeria and Russia. Nike is “the world’s leading football brand,” Trevor
Edwards, president of Nike Brands, told AFP in an
interview at the launch of the company’s latest soccer
boot, the Magista, in Barcelona on Thursday. Visibility means everything in this battle and players
and their boots will be a key weapon. Nike sponsors Portugal star Ronaldo and Barcelona
player Andres Iniesta who will showcase the
company’s new boots at the World Cup. Adidas have Argentina’s Messi at Barcelona and
Uruguayan goalscorer Luis Suarez will be shooting
with Adidas’s new Primeknit boots in Brazil. With record sales of football gear expected this year,
every market will be fought for during the four-week
tournament. - One billion dollars a year in Brazil - “The World Cup is an opportunity to really capture the
energy of football and leverage that energy to connect
with our consumers,” said Edwards. Magdalena Kondej, head of apparel research for
Euromonitor, a research firm, said the World Cup will
have “longer term implications in terms of brand
image and consumer brand loyalty across the globe.” Few countries will be fought over as much as Brazil,
favoured to win the cup on home territory and one of
the rising ecomomic powers. By the time the World Cup starts on June 12, Nike
expects to making one billion dollars a year in Brazil,
said the executive.