Georgia Tech officials included a free gold Adidas shirt with each football season ticket sold GETTY IMAGES
Georgia Tech's new apparel deal with Adidas "officially goes into effect on Sunday," but there will not be "much that actually happens" to mark the transition away from Russell Athletic, according to Ken Sugiura of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. The change will be "celebrated on the Tech website and through social media, but there won’t [be] any uniform reveals or launch events." GT Assistant AD/Brand & Ideation Simit Shah said that shipments of new Adidas gear "begin next week and hit store shelves and online retailers in mid-July." Adidas Dir of NCAA Sports Marketing Jim Murphy did not go into details about the variety of GT apparel that will be made available, but he said, "It’s going to be a transformation of what Georgia Tech fans are used to in the past." Sugiura noted in an effort to get Adidas gear in the hands of fans, school officials "included a gold Adidas shirt with each football season ticket sold, jumpstarting the standardization of the shade of gold worn on game days." Meanwhile, many coaches and players are "excited to be wearing Adidas gear" in part because of the relationship the company has forged with GT. The College World Series Home Run Derby will "provide an example" of that relationship. GT 1B Kyle McCann is taking part in Saturday's event, and while it "will be in advance of the start of the contract," GT execs decided it "would be a good publicity hit to get him in an Adidas uniform." The morning after the initial calls were made, Adidas had "sent a jersey, pants and cleats." Shah said, "We came to them with an opportunity, something that was kind of outside the norm, and they were all about it" (AJC.com, 6/27).
