High School Cuts

Regarding manufacturer sponsorships....

This has evolved quite a bit over the last 5-7 years.  The level of offer varies.  A few of the biggies (Nike, UA, adidas) offer a fairly substantial deal (not necessarily in $ but in free or heavily discounted gear and free coach and relevant admin gear) to some of the very high profile schools.  But where things have really changed is that there is now a brand war and Nike, UA and, to a lesser extent, adidas are partnering with team dealers to try to win the business of each sport at every HS (although, it appears there are pockets of rural areas where this does not apply).  If a sports program agrees to buy uniforms and/or team apparel from one of those brands, they get a team discount plus they build credit with the brand that can be spent on select shoes, coach apparel, etc.  If a school commits all (or most) sports to that brand, the discount and credit are increased.  The team dealer is rewarded with a deeper wholesale discount and becomes more competitive and/or margins are increased.  Team dealers who are partnered with one of these brands are often provided spreadsheets that show every single HS in a region with each sport they have listed along with the brand currently being used.  Stealing a sport from one of the big 3 competitive brands to another often affords a bigger incentive than re-ordering the same brand or switching from a smaller/cheaper brand.   The first time I saw the spreadsheets for Calif., it kinda blew me away.

All this said, they are not giving this stuff away.  But, in the current climate, it often allows schools to buy the Nike or UA apparel for roughly the same price as many of the cheaper alternatives they have had to buy in the past.

joes87 posted:

Direct from the manufacture offered in 2015.  It was not Nike, but the other big one...

I guess I could say it was Under Amour as it made it to the school board vote and the terms of the deal is public record at this point.

That's awesome and I would say at least 10 years after I asked.  So either policies changed or they just didn't like me haha.  The being equal to other schools is frustrating because your school is either more attractive than the other or someone at your school worked hard to get that deal in place and it's shot down due the other school not being included.  When you try and force equality you hold back progress.  People should have equal access to success not take half of one to make both equal.  If the other school wanted to negotiate with Under Armor or whoever then they should be allowed to.

When I was at the school I was head coach there was one year we had a little over half of the money raised to go on our spring break trip.  A new principal comes to me and says softball team was going on a spring break trip this year and due to Title IX he was taking my money and give it to them.  To say I was livid would be a huge understatement.  At that point I stopped raising money for the year.  Principal said we would alternate years of who would go on a trip but both sports would raise money each year to help each other out.  Now if he would have sat us down and explained starting the next year that deal I probably would have went along with it.  But to have it forced on me and taking our money was wrong.  Ended up the softball coach was cool and we agreed that we would fundraise our own money the year we were going.

There's a lot of opportunity for sponsorship and donations out there.  For example you can get $3-4k from Lowes.  Reach out to some big businesses that are local.  We had a coach last year who got the basketball team free uniforms and shoes from UA despite us ranking in the bottom 1% in the country. It wasn't the quality stuff but it was free and they make that stuff for pennies anyway.