July 11 – In the battle of the appareil brands US firm Nike is claiming major summer success over its European rival adidas at both the Copa America Centenario and the European Championships.
Add to this the phenomenal draw power of Ronaldo to the brand and any blues Nike may have been feeling corporately over the US Department of Justice investigation into football corruption will be well and truly offset by their marketing success.
Nike reports that at the European Championships, 62% of all minutes played in the tournament so far have been by players in Nike boots (compared to 29% for their nearest competitor adidas). Tiempo has been the most popular Nike model.
Of all the goals scored, 65% came from players in Nike boots (compared to 29% for the adidas).
Cristiano Ronaldo has been the spearhead of Nike’s dominance with his own personal records as the first player to score in seven different Euro Championships games and to have scored three or more goals in two different Euro tournaments (2012, 2016). He equaled Michel Platini’s record of nine goals at Euro Championships.
He has scored more headed goals than any other player in Euro Championships finals (5 goals) and is the first to have played in three Euro Championships semifinals (2014, 2012, 2016).
Meanwhile ‘the Switch’ film, featuring Cristiano Ronaldo has hit more than 51 million views on Youtube alone ), not including Facebook or other platform views (Nike football Facebook has 42 million likes, the Nike Football IG channel has 20.4 million followers).
Nike was, of course, Portugal’s kit sponsor.
The firm was also sponsor of Copa America winning Chile whose striker Eduardo Vargas top scored with six goals wearing the Nike Mercurial Superfly.
Of all minutes played in the tournament, 58.5% were by players in Nike boots (compared to 34% for adidas). Mercurial Superfly was the most popular Nike model that side of the Atlantic.
66% of all goals scored were by players in Nike boots (compared to 27.5% for the nearest competitor adidas).
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