re: 2015 Auburn Basketball Recruiting Thread

I fell out of contact with somebody who was a part of this. Need to catch back up with him solid guy


I'm sure that the post on ITAT has some foundation but the guy isn't getting the info from the business end of the AD.

From one of the guys who is in the negotiation/helps broker the actual deal

How our deal was made

-These deals are made off a combo of money + performance. If someone doubled the richest contract out there but with subpar equipment it would be a "big time offer" as long as we thought they'd improve. (See original UA deal)


-Auburn athletics officials who made deal did not believe in the "Nike AAU hype" like others did pre Pearl era (don't know current belief)

-Our deal with UA is a flagship UA program deal and we are treated as such. We get paid above market value and get more perks than what our merchandise value would be measured at


-Our special UA status was a result of being the best program in their brand, first major program to sign with them and some "scorched earth negotiating" (we leveraged our position to the max bordering on exploiting/making UA feel slighted)

-Our players do a solid job repping UA post grad like Cam and now Sammie Coates



Where we are now

-Under Armour pulled off one of the biggest hauls out there by signing Notre Dame. That adds another premier program to their brand. Considering our previous negotiation strategy, I would assume that would drastically hurt our position. Especially since UA wasn't extremely happy about us leveraging us like we did

-As mentioned, Tennessee dropped Adidas which leaves them with Ms St and TAMU in the SEC. More importantly though, Adidas has lost all major Southeast programs and has very very little exposure to Southeast MidAtlantic.

That would make AU a potentially attractive target and allow them to pay above market value for us