Posts Tagged adidas

Photo by bdjsb7

My son is a diehard UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fan, and he’s actually gotten me hooked.  I mean, who doesn’t love seeing two guys beating the hell out of each other?  He wanted to get a Tapout t-shirt, so we headed on over to Dick’s to get him sized properly.  This is the one that he picked out:

I’ll admit, it does look pretty cool.  Or “sick”, as my son put it.  It was then that it occurred to me how insane all of this sports merchandising was.

Free Advertising

I had unused money on a gift card, so the shirts were “free”, so to speak.  Any time that I don’t have to lay out cash, I consider it a freebie.  The store had row upon row of various merchandise, all with their manufacturer’s logos proudly displayed.  People were lining up to become shills for Nike.  Reebok would be getting free advertising on every basketball court.  No royalties were being paid by Under Armour.

Walking Billboards

When did this phenomenon start?  I can remember back in junior high school, when one of my classmates had a shirt with “PUMA” emblazoned on the front.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that may have been the start of people turning themselves into walking billboards.  Of course, after that Puma sighting, we all wanted to fit in, so we donned our adidas shirts.  Call it peer pressure.

Paradigm Shift

What a brilliant idea from the sports merchandising folks.  Rather than wear a shirt with your favorite team’s logo, you were promoting the manufacturer of the shirt.  Reebok knows no boundaries between Red Sox Nation and Yankees Universe.  Bears and Packers fans both wear Under Armour.  They’ve sidestepped loyalty to a team, and created loyalty to a brand.  Quite the paradigm shift.

Source of Passive Income?

So I had an idea.  Maybe I could send a bill to Tapout for the advertising cost.  We could negotiate a royalty based on how many times my son wears the shirt.  After all, websites charge for advertising based on page views.  He’s got at least 600 kids in his high school, so that’s potentially 1,200 eyes on him every day, all from the demographic that Tapout wants to reach.

So my question is: Do you think they’d go for it? 

Follow the Corporate Barbarian as he tries to shake down yet another industry: Subscribe

• A Spider's-Eye View of Passive Income vanz I was out vacuuming my pool early on Sunday morning, and I happened to notice a small spider spinning its web.  I checked back occasionally, marveling at the precision of the construction.  In my caffeine-depleted state, I started making a connection: the spider was laying the groundwork for......
• 20 Blogs That Have Inspired Me h.koppdelaney I signed up for Darren Rowse's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge, and today's assignment was to create a list post.  Darren's site, Problogger, has provided me with great information that has helped me launch this blog.  I decided to make a list of all of......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Graduation Party Edition bionicteaching We threw a graduation party for my son, two weeks prior to his real graduation.  We did it early because we wanted our relatives to attend, and didn't want to interfere with everyone's summer vacation plans.  It was great to see family and friends that I usually only......

• Should I Become An Income Investor? There are several blogs out there devoted to passive income:  Living off dividends, the dividend guy, dividend growth investor, and dividends4life just to name a few, all dedicated to the idea of freeing oneself from the bonds of regular employment by creating a diversified income source not dependent on your......
• Review: Some Like it Wicked by Teresa Medeiros Some Like it Wicked by Teresa Medeiros is truly an exceptional read. She’s done it again creating characters that I love and a story line that makes me laugh and close the book with a happy sigh. The sex was tantalizing, decadent, and sizzling hot. The end has a......
• $2,811 In Passive Income For April 2008 I was so busy in May that I completely forgot to post April's passive income summary. On the bright side, April was a been a record breaking month for me with total "passive" income amounting to $2,811.42. On the flip side, I've been so busy, I haven't been paying attention......