Don't get me wrong - I personally LOVE sports (PhysEd was my major for my first two years in University), but NOT "professional" sports as per anything in recent history (which is also why I'm not really fond of sports quizzes that focus on "statistics" rather than health, exercise, movement, physics, kinetics, anatomy, skill development, comraderie and general rules/equipment of play).
The only vocation related to that term these days are the profession(s) of LAWYER/AGENT/AGENT representing SELF. Signed (supposedly legal and binding) contracts mean nothing to high-ranking sports figures these days (if normal people reneged on similar we would be put in jail). One minor "fer-instance" example: Pronger dumping a 4 year NHL contract with the Oilers to run off to another team - not that I personally care, yes he was good +- %age-wise, and arguably one of the best defensemen of this decade...but in my mind a "dirty" player. I wasn't upset that he LEFT, just upset that it's considered "OK" to break a contract like that with no repercussions!

If everyone would just NOT renew their season tickets for whatever team for a few years, things might get back to the REAL WORLD, where brain surgeons ... or teachers (who look after children for more waking hours per day than their parents do for at least 12 years of their lives) actually (and justifiably) would make more money per year than "whoever wearing whatever sportsgear is popular at the moment".

I don't care WHOSE son/daughter you are and I don't care which team you own as a personal tax write-off. Give me a valid reason before expecting me to care about your million dollar "problems".

If you ignore them, the prima donas will "go away" (my personal "field of dreams" lol)

Yes, I'm old and have "principles". Sue me lol

Yay for adidas for saying that they're out of there but boo for the school for not saying "sorry mate, either you wear adidas or you sit on the bench" and a boo for Michael Jordan for not giving his son clip across the ear.

Hear, hear, Jakeroo.

Actually, this is not the first time that athletic shoes have caused some major controversy. We had a very similar case with the German soccer national team just a while ago. The problem is that while shirts, shorts and other clothing are really pretty much equal from one company to the next and don't affect what a player does, athletic shoes are highly engineered pieces of equipment designed to boost performance. A player used to Nike Airs will simply not play as well in an Adidas and he will even play less well for a while when there's just a generation change within one brand. The player might even risk injury when playing in a shoe they are not used to because angles are a little bit different etc.

In the German case, ultimately, the performance of the player on the pitch was considered more important than shoe uniformity. Players are officially allowed to procure and wear their own shoes - they may just not have any obvious branding on it and the primary color must match the official team color.

I think that David Beckham had his shoes hand made for him but then had the stylings of which ever company was sponsoring Man U at the time placed on then. Thats a story I heard some time ago.