En el mismo libro se explica como Jack McMahon, entonces gerente de los San Diego Rockets, fue uno de los primeros en ser receptivo al lanzamiento de Severn, principalmente porque tres de sus jugadores habían sufrido lesiones que atribuyó a sus zapatillas. En la temporada de 1968, convenció a casi todos los jugadores para que le dieran una oportunidad a las Supergrip. Cuando Converse recibió la noticia de que adidas se estaba moviendo en su mercado, ofreció dinero a algunos jugadores para continuar jugando en sus zapatillas de lona, pero Severn se mantuvo firme en su enfoque.
Rockets may have been the worst team in the League at that time, but every time they presented themselves in a different city against a new team, it gave the Superstar a new dimension.So much, that many teams were interested in them.In 1969 the Superstar was being used by many players in the Boston Celtics, who won the NBA championship that year.Four years after the launch of the product, about 85 percent of all professional players in the United States changed Adidas.
Severn even convinced their bosses to try to sign players to carry their shoes exclusively.In this way he got in 1976 that the most prominent player of the time carried the three stripes on his feet: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar accepted for 25.000 dollars a year, thus becoming the first basis for sponsorship agreement with Adidas.
The introduction of the superstar simultaneously promoted the general business of Adidas and threw gasoline to the disappearance of the classic converse such as basketball shoe.Adidas had not only entered the NBA, but dominated her.Therefore, Adidas's sales shot.In the early 1970s, basketball quickly represented 10 percent of Adidas Total Sales.
But just like the Superstar ended the basketball converse, quickly other more advanced shoes ate the ground to the superstar.But when they seemed that they were going to die, his second life came.A life, by the way, much more successful than the first.The Superstar would find its true vocation and reach new levels of popularity as lifestyle shoes.Thanks, above all, to hip-hop.
The second life of Adidas Superstar: rap and streetwear
In the early 1980s, Adidas began to change the material with which they were made, passing from leather to the felt and before.In addition, they made them a wider pocho thinking about the United States market, in which large sneakers began to be fashionable.
