What? Simona Halep and Adidas part ways.

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Wilson Blade 9

Reigning world No.1 Simona Halep and WTA Fan Favorite player of the year currently doesn’t have a clothing sponsor secured for 2018, as Adidas is not renewing her contract.

When asked about this issue, manager Virginia Ruzici responded via email “No comment”, so she neither confirmed, nor did she say the shocking news was not true. As Tennis.life states, the reason for the separation is that Halep’s representatives asked for a more valuable contract, given the Romanian’s improved status and on-court achievements, but Adidas’ offer was not living up to their expectations.

However, since Halep didn’t manage to find a more lucrative deal elsewhere, she returned to Adidas, too late, though. The German company had already allocated their 2018 budget and there was no place for the tennis star, their representative since April 2014. So, the major cause of this unexpected contract termination, besides their different evaluation of Halep’s worth, is discrepancy in timing.

We’re waiting for an official statement by Halep and Adidas, or if they mention nothing, in two weeks we’ll see what the Romanian will wear at the Shenzhen Open, her first tournament of the 2018 season.

Thank you, reader Sru, for sharing this story with me!

12 COMMENTS

  1. To me it’s obvious that this is another huge mistake of PR management coming from Simona’s team. They should of advise her to take an English conversation professor and a good manners one, too.
    Unfortunately these kind of mistakes are payed dearly, i.e. with plenty of money. When she is going to realise how much money she lost is, definitely, going to fire Virginia Ruzici for her constant mistakes and easy to notice laziness. Maybe Mr. 5% might be able to pull up something for her. In fact, if Ţiriac won’t be able to do it, nobody would, what so ever.

  2. If Simona has no contract yet for the Shenzhen Open, will she be adorned is “generic” tennis wear like the unheralded 100+ ranked players have to wear?

  3. This is not a mere “discrepancy in timing”. A good manager would have been sure to make some approaches to other sportswear companies behind he scenes beforehand and have secured alternate sponsorship offers before pushing Adidas too hard on upping her current deal with them. At least then they’d have the alternative sponsor secured and have something to hold over Adidas in negotiating with them for more money. As it was, Adidas held all he cards since Halep hadn’t secured another sponsor and effectively had nowhere to turn. This is a major management failure on the part of Halep’s team, and could end up costing her a ton of money.

  4. It’s definitely a big mistake of her team, but now that the damage is done, no penalties on them can take back the time and secure Halep a contract.

    Jim, yes, generic, I think. The Shenzhen Open will start soon, so we’ll see.

  5. Adidas is equally at fault for losing her just now that the game started to click more than before. She’s bound to lift a couple of trophies in 2018. She could have lifted them in Adidas outfit.

    They didn’t have to agree on whatever terms Tiriac or Ruzici asked, but at the very least give them a window to rethink the request, see for themselves they can’t get better elsewhere, then come back.

    Actually, as she’s #1 now, they could have given her a small bonus, but not as much as probably requested. For example, they could have thrown that to the negotiation table:
    – you either accept only a 10% bonus here and now
    – or the very same deal if they change their mind the week after (after having seen that they can’t get a better deal), being clear also about what’s the deadline to still change their minds

    We may never know the exact details (because neither side wants to burn bridges perhaps), but this looks to me like old style macho negotiations, with neither side wanting to compromise, which also leads me to believe – knowing Halep’s character – that she wasn’t even at the negotiation table. So this was probably a lesson for her in not trusting her team so much anymore in these matters.

  6. Adidas is the sponsor, so if the sponsor doesn’t feel the player is entitled to a better contract offer, that is their prerogative. There are no two sides about it. The reality is Halep is #1 in the rankings, but barely. She wasn’t named ITF Champion which certainly would have went a long way, for her (or her team) to negotiated a better contract. Halep has lifted trophies in past, her biggest are her 3 Mandatory wins, problem is; that she won all 3 titles without facing a player ranked in the top 10. She has also faltered on the big occasions. So I can certainly see why, Adidas wasn’t changing their sponsorship obligations to Halep.

  7. Adidas is at fault. They chose a lower ranked player to represent just because they think that person might be better/we all know that, she is from West Europe, Simona from the East, dumping a hard working consistent super tennis player. Shame on Adidas! Certainly they lost me and my family as a customer/probably not big deal for them, but hopefully many more thousands or so will follow This is so sad and very political !!!;

  8. Ray of light, who are you referring to when you say a lower ranked player from Western Europe? Sloane, who has recently signed with Adidas is from the USA.

    Also, note that they signed a life-long contract with Ivanovic and she’s from Eastern Europe.

  9. So much wrong information here, and someone feeling victimized on false premises.
    WTA beauty Sloane Stephens (US) did not sign with Adidas but Nike (on a record contract). Joins up with Bouchard, a white Western posh favorite these days famous for anything but tennis quality, and Sharapova who’s back from her doping ban!
    Better company for a “hard working consistent super tennis player” ?
    Adidas has 11 contracts with top 100 female players, including 3 from East Asia (Wang, Peng, Osaka), 2 from Central/East Europe (Kontaveit, Ostapenko) and 4 of Central/East Europe descent (Kerber, Mladenovic, Petkovic, Wozniacki). The last is Muguruza who’s Venezuelian/Spanish.
    BTW, current WTA #2, 3 and 4 are among them (hardly “lower ranked players”).

  10. Adidas women’s tennis wear sucks! Glad Simon’s will be moving on hopefully to something as attractive and appealing as she is!

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