Like them or not, the Adidas t-shirt jerseys are here to stay. At least until April.
The company confirmed to the Sports Business Daily that certain Adidas-sponsored schools will don the new digs during the NCAA tournament. The jerseys will be very similar to those worn by the Golden State Warriors during a recent game against the San Antonio Spurs.
"We are still working on teams," Lawrence Norman, Adidas VP/Global Basketball, told the Sports Business Daily, "but it will be a very innovative story."
Adidas said eight schools will wear the jerseys, with Louisville being one of them. Michigan and N.C. State officials told the Sports Business Daily that their teams will not be donning the jerseys, while top-ranked Indiana has not yet heard from Adidas officials.
The Warriors' jerseys received a mix reaction, but one fan of the new look was uniform expert and Uni Watch blogger Paul Lukas. He told the New York Times that the idea of the jerseys is not simply to present a new look, rather there's a marketing incentive as well.
"A lot of people who will buy a baseball jersey or a football jersey aren’t going to buy a basketball jersey because a tank top has a more limited range of situations in which you can wear it," Lukas said. "It is less forgiving for certain body shapes and sizes, and there’s a resistance to buying a tank top."
Several NCAA women's teams are also expected to wear the uniforms during their postseason play.
