March Madness not just about Competition, but also Business for Sports Brands

             For every college sports fan across the nation, this can be considered to be the best time of the year. Sixty-eight teams go to battle to win the NCAA Basketball Championship, and no team is a given, even unbeaten Kentucky. But along with one of the greatest sports atmospheres found anywhere in the world, the topic of sportswear and fashion trends are a main part of the talk.
            Turn on any game over the next few weeks, and I can guarantee that by the end you will know what brand each team was wearing and even possibly the specific shoes a certain player may be wearing. Top sports brand companies don’t need to create a contract with the NCAA to promote their products because the schools they sponsor are doing it for them each time they step foot on the basketball court.

For the 2015 NCAA Basketball Tournament, Adidas revealed
these specially designed uniforms for sponsored schools.

             Some sports brands use that to their advantage . In past years, companies have come out with special jerseys just for tournament time. That is a great advertisement opportunity, because sports brands can come out with eye catching gear that will attract the average basketball fan that they might not see if its shown in a commercial, because if you are like me, commercials are the best times to check your phone for other scores. I think this is ingenious of sportswear companies to use a tournament that they have no partnerships with as a way to sell their product, because in the end, they aren't losing money they wasted on an advertisement, they are creating more buzz for their product that players are unknowingly promoting.  
            Most of the big name schools in college basketball, like Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Duke are easily recognizable because they are the face of college basketball and their fan gear is always in high demand throughout the season. But, what happens when smaller schools like Georgia State and University of Alabama Birmingham make some noise by getting upsets over top seeds on their path to being this years’ Cinderella story? They cause a huge surge in the sportswear world. When a smaller school upsets a big name, they gain followers as most love to support the David when battling a Goliath. When they win, people want to show their support for this newly rising star and go out and buy a jersey or fan shirt to support their team. Think back to when Florida Gulf Coast made a run in the tournament a few years ago and how many people you saw wearing a snapback or jerseys to show their support for a school they had not previously had affiliation with.
           That right there shows the power of the sports and their influence on the sportswear world. This is about big events like March Madness, the Super bowl, the College Football Playoffs, and the World Series. After a champion is crowed, what is the first commercial you see following the game? Yep, that’s right, it’s a commercial influencing the consumers to buy a shirt that supports the winning team, and who wouldn’t want to do that? Sports brands have found a way to use big events that they may not be necessarily partnered with, to create profit by showing support for the winning teams. It’s all calculated decisions when it comes to the business world and when combined with sports, it’s not too hard to figure out as most people tend to support the underdog and the hard-nosed winners.

Image Source: www.bleacherreport.com