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Louisville's football and basketball programs are currently in a much better position that Nebraska's, and those are the only two sports that really move this needle. As I said earlier, Nebraska is (at best) in third place in the Adidas portfolio behind Louisville and Miami. And although their payout doesn't have parity, Adidas has also been developing a significant relationship with Arizona State with respect to sports science and product design/testing. Miami signed their Adidas deal two years before we renewed our contract. Miami had been a Nike school for nearly three decades so Adidas wanted to make a big splash with their contract. I think they got $90MM spread over 12 years, so significantly less than Nebraska. And Adidas is willing to come back to the table and renegotiate if these payouts keep climbing. What more could we ask for? Nike represents far too many programs to be able to offer Nebraska these amounts or give us any sort of attention/special treatment. I believe Adidas actually employs a corporate liaison that lives on site in Lincoln. This is where we want to be.

Last time I checked, the ACC had added SEVEN schools since 2000. Louisville is just one of them. Louisville is in a Power Five conference because conference expansion is lucrative, and because of their performance in basketball and football over the past decade. Also, they've negotiated huge corporate investments from Yum! Brands and Papa John's and made huge investments into their facilities and coaching staffs. They pay both their football and (especially) basketball staffs more than Nebraska. And as nice as the PBA is, the KFC Yum! Center is a bigger/better/more expensive facility. Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is going to have a capacity in the mid-60s after their next expansion. They're growing their brand at a very swift pace.