A new commitment from Adidas

The company has pledged to help high schools drop offensive Native American mascots. Could the big leagues be next?

Last week Adidas announced it would help any high school get rid of Aboriginal mascots, logos, nicknames and symbolism and provide financial support to help ease the costs of that kind of big change.

The announcement was made alongside the White House Tribal Nations Conference in Washington.

Change the Mascot, a campaign in the US to end the use of the slur “r*dskins” as the mascot and name of the NFL team in Washington, DC, praised Adidas’ announcement.

The group says there are about 2000 schools in the States that have Native American mascots.

“This remarkable stand against racism by adidas illustrates that the issue of ending the use of the R-word is not going away, but is instead gaining momentum as people understand the damaging impacts of this racial slur,” noted a statement from the campaign.

President Barack Obama also praised Adidas for the move.

It’s curious, though, that Adidas sells uniforms to teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and merchandise for fans of the Cleveland Indians. A Washington Redskins spokesperson said the move against that teams, while maintaining its business connections with others, is hypocritical.

“The hypocrisy of changing names at the high school level of play and continuing to profit off of professional like-named teams is absurd,” spokesperson Maury Lane said in a statement.

“Adidas make hundreds of millions of dollars selling uniforms to teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and the Golden State Warriors, while profiting off sales of fan apparel for the Cleveland Indians, Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Braves and many other like-named teams.”

So, does this suggest Adidas will soon move to end its business partnerships with these teams, as long as these teams have offensive names and mascots?

What do you think?