The three big ones: Nike, Adidas and Puma

Today Nike, Adidas and Puma are three main sponsors that present a lot of football clubs and national football teams all around the world. Moreover, these sports brands are sponsors of the most popular football players. And of course, some people prefer to wear Nike , others Adidas and Puma . These brands are the main competitors in the sports brands market. So, let’s find out more about these well-known brands and their sponsorships.

Nike Inc. is an American sportswear company originally from Beaverton (Oregon) that was founded in 1964 as Blue-Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. In 1978 Blue-Ribbon Sports was renamed and became Nike Inc. with the well-known swoosh logo and the slogan “Just do it”.

Adidas is a German brand that was created in 1949 by Adi Dassler and initially was called “Adi Dassler adidas Sportschuhfabrik”. In the beginning Adi Dassler was producing only football boots, continued with sport costumes and for the FIFA World Cup in 1970 Adidas created the official ball called “TELSTAR”. Now the brand of Adidas is a multi-sport brand with the well-known sign of three stripes.

PUMA is also a German brand that can be called the brother of Adidas as was created in 1948 by the brother of Adi Dassler – Rudolf Dassler. Initially Puma was called “Sportschuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler (RUDA)”. And as Adidas Puma started its job with making boots and continued as a multi-sport brand with the logo of leaping Puma.

Sponsoring Football players is the most interesting part, because players represent the brand individually through social media, while playing in the boots of the brand and using the brand stuff in the normal life showing to their fans that this brand is worse wearing.

Let’s start with Nike … The main football star of this brand is of course Cristiano Ronaldo that has a contract with Nike for his whole life. Together with him, Neymar was a part of Nike brand (now he is sponsored by Puma) as well as, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, Didier Drogba, Carles Puyol, Eric Cantona, Thierry Henry, Andrea Pirlo, Francesco Totti, etc.

The main football star of Adidas that is always in the competition with Nike and Cristiano Ronaldo is Lionel Messi. Ivan Rakitić, Paul Pogba, Karim Benzema, Mesut Özil, Timo Werner, Thomas Müller, Manuel Neuer, Isco, Jordi Alba, Paulo Dybala, Ángel Di María, Dani Alves and thousands of more players are the part of the huge Adidas family.

PUMA also has its football stars and among them are Luis Suarez and Neymar . Sergio Aguero, Antoine Griezmann, Samuel Umtiti, Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluigi Donnarumma,Cesc Fàbregas, Nacho Monreal, Diego Godin and more, more others players are sponsored by PUMA.

These three brands every day compete with each other in the sports market for the attention of the consumers and different sports companies and athletes. But we also mustn’t forget about other brands that are getting involved in this sports brand’s race such as New Balance, Kappa, Umbro, Under Armour and so on.