2006年NPR美国国家公共电台六月-World Cup Battle: Nike vs. Adidas

Time now for business news.

The World Cup begins tomorrow in Germany. Team rivalries 1 in soccer or football, as it's known in the rest of the world, are intense. Equally intense is the soccer competition between the world's two biggest producers of sports apparel, Nike and Adidas. As NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, Nike, a relative newcomer to soccer, is gunning for the German company whose name is practically synonymous with the game.

For Nike, soccer has become the Holy Grail. Nike is bigger than Adidas, but as Nike sees it, to truly be the No.1 sports brand in the world, you have to be No. 1 in the world's most popular sport.

(Nice work!)

At Adidas' North American headquarters in downtown Portland, serious play is part of the job. But mention Nike's ambition here, and you'll get an earful from employees like Antonia Zaya, Adidas, he says, is No. 1 in soccer, always has been, always will be .

"Soccer is the soul of Adidas. It's what the company was built on and there is a little guy behind all this. There was a shoemaker, and he wasn't somebody that was just putting shoes on people's feet, he was a person that was making shoes for athletes. And that is the spirit that lives with all of us. It's the passion of the game."

The passion for soccer permeates 2 everything inside the edgy 3 high-tech 4 buildings here. A nine-foot replica 5 of Adidas' new World Cup Ball dominates the lobby, along with a huge electronic clock, counting down the seconds till the start of the games. More than 2 years ago, 200 Adidas employees were selected and given a task---create new technologically 6 superior products for the World Cup.

"I was one of those people actually. I built some of those products."

Anotinia Zaya says the coolest thing was working on TUNIT-a new concept in soccer shoes known in much of the rest of the world as football boots. Each pair comes with different choices for soles and studs, so it can be instantly customized.

"The chassis 7 is simply inserted into the, the upper of the product, slides in and then to simple screw-in system that you screw into the upper. TUNIT is the iPod of the industry."

But while Adidas invokes 8 the iPod, much of the company's marketing 9 strategy is very traditional. The company boasts that it has locked up all the official sponsorships. It is the only sports apparel company that can advertise inside or near the stadiums, and it is the only one that can run ads on most TV broadcasts with billions of fans expected to watch the games in person or on television. Adidas has a powerful marketing platform. But make no mistake, Nike has plans of its own.

On a recent afternoon at Nike's sprawling 11, 176-acre campus in suburban 12 Portland, a top high school athlete is blasting balls into the net as part of a field test for a new Nike shoe. The company has come a long way in soccer since 1994, when it first decided 13 to get serious about the sport. The company's Dean Stoyer says, 'in the past 12 years, Nike soccer business has grown from 40 million to nearly 1.5 billion.'

"We have been striving to be the No.1 soccer brand in the world since we made that commitment in '94."

And Nike, he says, doesn't enter a fight unless it intends to win. Paul Swangard of the University of Oregon sports marketing program says, 'for Adidas, the challenges to be hip 10 and relevant while still paying homage 14 to the past.' Nike, he says, can focus solely 15 on the future.

"Nike has gone very hard at the next generation. This, this idea of soccer-crazed kids that are growing up in a new environment with a new media world, with new tastes in favorite teams and favorite athletes."

One of Nike's favorites is the superstar of the Brazilian national team, Ronaldinho, according to Nike's Dean Stoyer, Ronaldinho embodies the company's marketing theme, Joga Benito, it means play beautifully in Portuguese 17.

"Ronaldinho is by far the most popular player and most would say, the most talented player in the world today, and he is, he is very, very young, and he is incredible to watch."

In the Nike-produced Internet-only ad that the company says has been downloaded 30 million times, Ronaldinho is seen doing spectacular shots, on his feet, Nike cleats, with a huge golden swoosh. With exposure like this, Nike says, we don't need official World Cup sponsorships. What matters most, of course, is what happens on the field, whose gear gets seen the most. Nike is banking 18 on the Brazilians to win, while the German company Adidas is pulling for its home team.

Wendy Kaufman, NPR News.

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apparel:formal clothes;衣服, 装饰
gun for:to be trying very hard to obtain something;努力获取达到某事情
get an earful:听了一堆话, 听得叫人厌烦
replica:an exact copy of something, especially a building, a gun, or a work of art ;复制品
chassis:the frame on which the body, engine, wheels etc of a vehicle are built ;底盘
lock up:锁上
sprawling:a large area of buildings that are spread out in an untidy and unattractive way ;无计划地占用山林农田的厂房
strive:to make a great effort to achieve something ;努力, 奋斗, 力争, 斗争
to be hip:to learn about a new product, idea etc;熟悉内情,行情,最新产品与创意等等
homage:something you do to show respect for someone or something you think is important;敬意
embody:to be a very good example of an idea or quality;具体表达
swoosh:to make a sound by moving quickly through the air;哗哗作响的移动, 嗖的一声
bank on:to depend on something happening or someone doing something;指望
pull for:to encourage a person or team to succeed ;朝...驶去, 力图到达..., 靠近