Nation,
Think back to 2002.
Used to be that GAIA was king in ultimate gear. The company, based in Vancouver, seemed to have it all. Great logo, brand equity in the sport enjoyed by none other, key sales staff/agreements throughout the continent, and deals with the best teams in the land. Most notably, Furious George wore the cleats. uniforms and paraphernalia of Gaia.
Back to 2008.
The marketplace has changed, and so too has the place of GAIA. The current state of GAIA will be covered in a future post. All we need to say at this point is that their position in the sport has taken a hit. Competing companies like VC, Patagonia, Adidas, and other brands have taken serious junks of the competitive and recreational ultimate team market. The GAIA cleat, once the hottest item in the sport, remains the only ultimate specific cleat available. However, none of the best players seem to use it, adopting football cleats from Nike and the big boys of footwear. When someone pays for their cleats when they could get free cleats/discounted cleats meant for their sport, that's a bad sign.
So the poll question is:
- Who's the Best Clothing Company in Ultimate Right Now?
2 comments:
Kind of a strange vote. VC and Gaia are certainly ultimate clothing companies, but the others are really clothing companies more focused on other sports that some frisbee players just happen to buy uniforms from.
It would be hard to compare the success of a giant company like Adidas to the much smaller "ultimate clothing companies" or do you really just want to know: "Who sells the coolest stuff?"
I'm really banking on VC right now. My interaction with GAIA over the past year has been substantially less than desirable. Most recently, they have stopped responding to emails to them regarding some gift certificate vouchers that disappeared after they remodeled their web site.
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