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In 2009, Adidas came out with a surprise announcement: their very own line of tennis rackets targeted from professionals to beginners and everyone in between. Until that point, Adidas was well known in the tennis world for its high quality shoes and apparel, so manufacturing a tennis racket couldn't be too hard, right?
Well, the debut would go down as one of the most embarrassing and poorly thought-out tennis product launches to date, with any mention of the rackets being erased from the internet just one year later. How did Adidas screw this up so badly?
CULT Tennis brings you player profiles and analyzes some of the best stories in the world of Tennis! Subscribe to see more content like this, and thank you for stopping by!
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WEN CULT TENNIS ONLY FANS?!
can you learn how to pronounce djokovic? Its not "joker-vic"
Guess im late
Hey cult tennis, how frequently are pro players tested for performance enhancing drugs? Maybe a video there... Players who've been caught/suspended.
I know a person who owns adidas racquet
I just realized that I've never seen an adidas tennis racket in my life wow
They are eBay if you want one
They made some in the '80s.
I saw a adidas racquet recently
I just realized I got one cult racket!
@@nomimalone7520 nope, racket
The GOAT of tennis channels remembered his password, lets go
😂😂😂 Well Said
@@nomimalone7520 “racket” is the preferred spelling in tennis
It's his normal upload schedule though
@@AlleyWolf123 no
I remember playing tennis competitively in my state and when my old racquet broke my coach brought five new racquets for me and my fellow players, Wilson, babolat, head, prince and Adidas feather We were surprised to see Adidas racquet even existed lol, we were asked to test each of these racquets and choose whichever suited our playstyle better. Surprisingly I performed the best with Adidas racquet over those racquets and used it proudly. I thought it was uncommon racquet cuz I've never heard of one. And whichever competition I went on to play everyone would give me this surprised look as if I brought some alien device in the court whenever they see my racquet and ask me to give them a try. Half of them liked it but found it difficult to play with When I went on to play state level tournament that's when I realised just how rare this racquet was, cuz players from all over the state had never heard of such racquet. Truly felt special and I still own that racquet to this day. Don't use it as it's in kinda fragile condition and don't wanna break it. But yeah, for me atleast it was truly a special racquet
that's a really nice story... Really wholesome
Very cute, thanks for sharing :)
Your research level is god tier at this point
bruh
How the gel would know if his research even is true to facts :/
Yet somehow can’t research how to pronounce adidas
@@mylesiswhite4122 Same loo
I remember seeing a large quantity of these on sale in an Adidas Outlet Store in the UK about 10 years ago, on clearance for £20 each. I recall there was a huge basket full, with some branded as "Barricade Tour" and others simply branded "Barricade". Despite being surprised to see Adidas branded racquets, I figured at the time that they must not have sold well enough at RRP hence ending up in an Outlet store. Kinda wish I'd bought one now for curiousity's sake!
bruh why you gotta do donald young dirty like that 😂
That’s rough. I guess that’s his way of saying DY is not going to make a comeback this time.
You talkin' about Donald "No Longer" Young?
Lesss gooo I was just having pizza and this makes everything better
Yooo me to lol
Yooooo. Pizza gang. I was mid slice.
Same xd
@@simi6212 shhhhh
same
He's the Lemmino of Tennis KZheadrs. if you know the channel, you know this is a heck of a compliment.
I personally believe that Cult Tennis, Lemmino, CGP Grey, and Rhystic Studies make some of the highest quality content on the platform.
@@mapthemultiverse true also EmpLemon
True dat
Nomi Malone lol what racket is perfectly fine
Two guys at my small club owned one of these. I always thought it was weird to see someone with an Adidas racket, but had no idea they were that uncommon
"Wow, that looks like something Cult Tennis would make..." *Clicks on video and gets excited*
Same
Ahh yes. The hapiness i feel when i see a cult tennis video is undescribable
So glad to see someone making in depth videos like this on Tennis. Keep up the phenomenal work!
Pretty amazing Babolat launched their tennis racquet frames in the nineties and look at where they are now. One of the premier manufacturers used by all the top players.
And they made good stringing machines as well and all of sudden stopped making and supporting them. I paid 4k for a Babolat Star 5 machine. Now I just hope it does not need service, since there is none.
In '09 I nearly bought a Barricade as my first adult racket because of me being a sucker for adidas products, here's what my coach had to say about that: "What the...no one plays with that, go with *this* instead." He sold me 2 Wilson nCode Six-One 95s, although he might've had his profit in my mind I think it was the right decision, probably one of the best rackets of all time.
Good video. I'd never heard of the Adidas racquet until I watched this video. I'm an Adidas fan, I think all their gear especially Tennis Shoes are great. When my interest was tweaked post watching this video I found a Adidas Barricade Racquet on EBay & bought it. The Adidas Barricade specs are similar to my racquet of choice the Prince Tour 95. I strung it up with RPM Blast @ 50lbs (same as the Prince) and thought this might be an OK racquet. From the first strike of a FH, I realised this thing is the 'real deal', it is a very good racquet. Very similar to the Prince Tour 95, great plow through on Groundies and nice racquet to volley with. Might be a 12 year old racquet but its specs are contemporary with modern frames. No racquet manafacturer, other than Yonex, make racquets in thier own factories. All racquets are made predominantly in China to the specs set out by companies like Head, Wilson, Prince etc etc. I'd suggest the failure of the Adidas Barricade racquet to 'launch' was not a fault of the racquet being quality but more, as stated in the video, a lack of enthusiasm from Adidas Marketing at the time.
Interesting , thanks for sharing!! I’m glad to hear someone getting firsthand experience with it!
I always wish he'd upload more frequently but I realize how much work goes into these vids so ty.
I bringed watched all of your documentaries! You put so much effort and knowledge into each video. They are fantastic!
You have some really amazing content related to only tennis and it's really hard to find such channels. I hope the whole tennis community will love it, keep it up, subscribed👍
Looking forward to see how the Lacoste tennis racket turns out.
Tecnifibre
Guy Forget got on with them.
@@nomimalone7520 you have a problem
They actually have racquets lol I just Googled it but youtube won't let me post the link
I thought you said "lactose"
I had a coach that owned one of these c. 2010! Played with it a few times, not by choice. Vividly remember it being an insanely stiff racket.
Producing super high quality content with lots of research. You deserve more recognition. Great vid.
I was on the adi Tennis sales staff back then. We all believed they were banking on signing Tsonga or Djokovic to a head to toe + frame deal. It seemed their agents used adidas to get more from the brands they went with. The sales force sold in the frames in all shops but they sell thru was non existent
10:46 Who would’ve thought my old high school KZhead account would’ve came back in this way!😂 Glad I could contribute to your amazing research! Loving the content man!
Haha so random!! Love it!
Wow. Very informative. Lesson learned: Just put a racquet in a pro's hand, pay them well and they will do the rest.
Great video, I am also from product management background albeit another industry. You nailed it on the lacklustre marketing. they were not OEM equipment merely just using the brand name, therefore I suspect they had a lot of restriction in terms of licensing and endorsing players. I suspect Adidas had to commit to a huge loads of racquets to get minimum order quantities (MOQ) from the factory, yet limited research in racquet design and because adidas did not own the manufacture lines profit margins to another 3rd party vendor would be not of been great, Which I suspect led to downfall. They were too confident of the brand and not invested in proper product management.
That's interesting. Because 3rd party or not, I would never have considered an Adidas racquet under any circumstances. Arrogance in the extreme that they thought people would rush to buy one.
Yeah, it looks like a lack of a coherent strategy. There are sort of two markets they could have gone after: consumer or competitive. It seems like the launch was based on consumer -- just plop a brand on a generic racket. But the distribution and channel (and maybe pricing?) was based on competitive -- sell through distributors, pro shops, and higher end retailers. The latter really requires more of a top-down approach in this market ... similar to how Nike developed and launched its golf line through and for Tiger Woods. Design to Woods through painstaking iterations and, if it's good enough for Woods, it'll be good enough for everyone else. Adidas seemed to skip that.
Actually Lendl’s racket line was based on Kneissl White Star Pro with Adidas GTX Pro paint job. Same molds, string pattern and specs. I owned and played with both. Lendl in his teen years played with Kneissl White Star Pro mold and never changed it until he and Adidas split.
Came here to say that, but you beat me to it. I also had that racket. I can’t say I liked it too much. It was very stiff as I recall, and had little feel. It probably suited my game pretty well (I hit the crap out of the ball, and with a lot of top spin), but it was no fun.
I don’t play tennis at all, but I love your videos. Peering into the strange world of tennis only known by tennis enthusiasts.
One of my coaches actually had the Barricade. Really didn't like how it felt. Tons of vibration if you happened to hit anywhere but the sweet spot.
This guy could make anything sound interesting. You have a skill in telling a story in an engaging way.
oooh this is juicy stuff! I never knew any of this ever happened. I love it! You are an excellent storyteller and I love how you dig stuff like this up.
I still have 4 of them! I forget the model but it's the 26mm straight beam version and they play great. I still remember how well I could hit with them. I moved away from low flex racquets and now use wilson. But I still have fond memories of the racquets.
your editing is so amazing! Keep it up!
As soon as I saw the racquets I could see there was something very "Generic" about them .... So, it turned out to be just a very bad "Branding" exercise rather a well thought out Design one. We're seeing the same thing happening in the String market where there are new brands in the market we never heard of being manufactured by some generic factory somewhere .... The Tennis market is becoming saturated by Fake artists .... Caveat Emptor.
Just found this channel, great stuff man!
No matter if you play tennis or not, this channel is amazing and the most underrated out there
I don't know why but this just reminded me of a shoe store in the 90's called "Just for Feet" that was ahead of its time. I am not exactly sure why they failed but the stores were cool. They had a basketball court inside. I also remember them having shoes that were made of tennis ball material. Weird. I had forgotten about this place till now.
Every time he uploads I'm so happy to watch it 10 times until the next video.
Same
Wow, I stop commenting for a few videos and look how much this channels quality and sub count have grown so much. I've been with you since you had 5 subscribers and your original Donald young video got taken down so i it's good to see how far you've come, I'm really happy for you. Keep up the great and versatile content coming brother 😀 Ps - still waiting on that marat safin video you kind of promised me 🤣 jk on the promise but would be nice.
Thanks so much!!! I agree, you truly might have been one of the first few subscribers , I can’t tell you how much the early support meant! We might one day see Marat grace this channel!
Great video man! keep up making those!! can u make a video in the future about Aslan Karatsev?
Wow didn't expect a video about rackets. Good job!
Really a great video. Would like to see what you can do on similar stories.
I used to read tennis warehouse racquet reviews as a kid. I saw this thing come and go. Never thought I'd see such a high quality video on the topic!
Nice video, I remember only one beginner club player playing whit one of these raquets, but I dont remember seeing them on a shop here in Chile. I have heard that the adidas CC feather IV shoes were banned from the pro tour because of their sole, would be an interesting topic for a new video(I dont know if it is 100% true, but I heard it more than one time)
I still have a GTX with Lendl's signature on it (not his racquet though). Even Becker used the GTX as a junior. Lendl really was Adidas in tennis back then as he was number one in the world and used not just their apparel and shoes but even racquets. After him switching to Mizuno, Adidas ceased to be a racquet company. Just like you stated. The GTX line of racquets weren't really original Adidas products either as the mold was an exact copy of the Kneissl Red Star, which Lendl had used prior.
I think it was called the white star
I didn't even know they came back in the racquet business. Great video again mate, you're getting better and better and the topics you choose are really interesting! I'd be interested in knowing what happened to Prince racquets too. I remember when I was a kid Michael Chang endorsed them and they were one of the most popular racquets on the market. Did they disappear?
Great video and really well edited!
I use the Adidas Response racket and I had no idea why I didn't see any other player using it. My brother bought this racket at an Adidas Outlet for R$200 (Brazil's currency), wich at the time (around 2012) was a really cheap racket, comparing to other models.
Not only is this video, like all Cult Tennis videos, entertaining and incredibly informative, the droll humor is on point and hilarious. Best one yet!
Lol
You're really good at this, great voice too.
I just realized I remember always looking on the tennis warehouse site for those… including those Avery rackets o.o geez has my life changed since then
I was playing amateur regional in France in the 80s, and I never saw ANYONE playing with Lendl's Adidas racket. On the other hand, Pro Kennex was highly popular despite no pro player endorsement I can think of. Funny how that works
Definitely true in the 80s; PK played well and I think popular in part due to its price advantage. No endorsements = lower cost!
Oh, I thought I subscribed months ago, but maybe I forgot. Either way, I'm subscribed now and enjoyed another great video! I'm curious though, where do you get the music you use?
Thanks for subscribing! All music I use is royalty free music through KZhead Studio and other various websites around the internet, depending on the genre I’m looking for!
I love your content, continue the good work !
The production quality of this video is wild. I dont even like tennis but I watched this video and just subscribed.
Ur content is on point mate--you should get more than 40k subscribers easily.
Can you do one on Aslan?! We all need to know where that man came from
Imagine Tsitsipas playing with an Adidas racquet 👀 that would’ve been great business
Such an educational channel. Keep up the spectacular videos.
These ADIDAS barricade 95 series rackets are great, stable and superb balanced, I used them with a set of co-poly at 49 with a YONEX damper and it works well for me
Impeccable upload timing cya next month with another banger
Great content, as always.
They actually did something similar with badminton rackets. They sponsored a couple of big names very briefly, but the initial batch was just rebranded models from a random Chinese OEM, and the rackets just didn't feel great. Their second batch was actually designed in-house and is excellent, but nobody is really giving them a chance because of the awful initial reputation.
When you finally remembered that you have a KZhead account:
Best channel on KZhead keep up the great content!
I thought you were going to name Tomić at the end 😅
Lol. I was waiting for that too.
God, the quality of your video (content, research, editing etc.) is insane. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Yay! An upload from you!!
Tennis racquets are all about superstar endorsement: imagine if Wilson didn’t sign RF at first place.
Yea true. Bc I got myself a Wilson for most of the reason being Federer is my fav player so why not get a Wilson racquet too
Ehhh I mean, Wilson is also partnered with Wimbledon and have been making tennis balls for years.
Thank you for spelling racquet correctly!
It didn't hurt their popularity, but Wilson racquets were already huge. Remember Pete Sampras?
@@galetinm Theyre huge once doesn't mean it will stay that way forever, remember Reebok or AND1 from basketball shoes? or if you look at how big the Yonex is now, no one ever heard the name back to 7-8 years ago, and Pete? that was like 20 ,30 years ago from now.
im not even into tennis but im so invested into these videos. keep it up
Fantastic videos! May I suggest a video on Prince's rise and fall and eventually whatever it is today? Would also be interesting to also know why Prince Japan is different.
Funny enough, I wrote this idea down last night!
Great video as always!
The adidas GTX head shape was similar to the kneissel and puma Becker winner/super but it was too heavy even for the 90s. The puma Beckers were heavy frames too but definitely more user friendly, a bigger sweet spot and more feel. Interestingly, Becker played with adidas as a junior but didn't sign up with them. They didn't offer enough.
This man is my favorite tennis channel
Wow the Donald young quote at the end was SAVAGE!
I don't really follow tennis that much, but the narrative stories you make are still quite interesting. Makes me consider following the sport.
That incredible wrong pronounciation of Adidas is really crazy :D
Yeah well, how do Russian mobsters and gopniks pronounce Adidas? That's what really matters. Three stripes for life baby.
As a table tennis player where the rubbers on the racket are so important for spin etc, I always wondered why tennis racket strings weren’t wrapped in rubber to let you add way more spin to the ball.🤷♂️
Came here after watching Tennis Talk with Cam - Subscribed 👍🏽
Great video as always! Can you do a video about the rise of Aslan Karatsev? That would be so cool!
Adidas also had their own line of badminton racquets. A sport popular in some European, Asian countries and India. There’s even an Adidas Badminton store few kilometres from my home in Hyderabad, India. But I have never seen a single Adidas badminton racquet or footwear even though I was targeted by Adidas badminton ads on Instagram. This was just in the last 1-2 years. Finally I decided to Google to see if I could find some Adidas badminton shoes when I was looking for a new pair few months back, but what I found was that they shut the entire operation without ever beginning just like the Tennis one. I wonder what the store few kilometres from my house stocks.
I actually bought two of these rackets due to my love for Adidas. However, used them for a year or so and went back to Wilson.
Finallyyyy, KZhead been boring without you :D
years ago one clueless friend bought this racket and i have the chance to play with it , theres no feel when i hit the ball and lack of power and control. Big fail from adidas
Good stuff . Disappointing that they never even made the rackets themselves . I just think it is a hard thing too go into a sport as specialised as tennis is .
Adidas planned on making Tsonga lead player to start. They even made ones specifically for him that he even tested and had tweaked to his specs. Then for some reason it all ended, I wish I knew why. They are actually really god racquets, I still play with them today and have new ones untouched.
Since your video is really well done and I hardly play anymore, if you are dying to get your hands on one, I'd be happy to send one your way.
Totally not a tennis fan but the algorithm started recommending your videos and now I’m a little bit hooked xD
He’s back boys 🥳🎉
Another great video! I love Adidas tennis gear and would love to see a true racquet effort... And give Mr. Brown a break!
I had the Lendl Adidas racquet. I loved it but over time got into newer and bigger racquets. One day wanted to get back into the Lendl racquet and I couldn't hit with the small head because I got accustomed to modern 98 square inch racquet heads. As far as feel, that Lendl was great. Had I not moved to larger head racquets I could have kept playing the smaller racquet head. By the way the Adidas Lendl had a counterpart in the Kneissl brand. I believe Kneissl made it for Adidas.
Your editing is unmatched
“Put their sticks in the hands of professionals” i see what you did there 😏
I gotta say I saw the title of this video and wasn't interested, but it was actually great! Your channel is amazing!
I have an Adidas Barricade Tour racket given to me by an older gentleman in Japan where I live. He liked to collect rare rackets but then lost interest. He also gave me a Prince Vortex Oversize that was produced for only one year or so back in about 1993. I knew the Prince Vortex was rare but didn't know the Barricade was too. Interesting.
No mention of Kneissl. The Austrian company made the original Adidas racquet Lendl used in the early 80s, painted as an Adidas. The White Star was a phenomenal racquet; my hitting partner as a kid had one; so light by 80s standards, stiff for control but enough flex. It just felt different from any other. The spin, wow.
Great vid!
So one of my high school rivals had a Barricade racket and I used it a couple times. Didn’t hate it, didn’t like it more than my Babolat, which was weird bc I’ve always been a big adidas fan. I didn’t realize it had dived so badly but I do now realize I’ve never seen another one ever
U r so good! Great video
WHERE DID YOU GO?! I cant go 4 weeks without a tennis video
I’ve been to a tennis shop and seen an actual Addidas tennis racquet used by Ivan Lendl in the final of the Australian Open. It was in two pieces hanging on the wall lol