Tennessee reportedly talking to Adidas about a new apparel contract

Could they switch back and move away from Nike?

Some of you won’t care about this — some of you will care a lot about this.

Way back in 2014 it was announced that Tennessee would be moving away from Adidas and moving into the Nike camp. Nike would go on to handle all of Tennessee’s official apparel, which includes uniforms in all sports. Notably, Nike changed the football jersey template along with the number font and other small details.

The results? An undeniable upgrade. Nike just does everything at a higher level, including Tennessee’s ‘smokey grey’ and alternate ‘dark mode’ looks.

A little more than a decade later, Tennessee is seemingly flirting with a move back to Adidas. Tennessee’s apparel deal with Nike is reportedly up in 2026 and negotiations are ongoing regarding who will take over.

According to a couple of rumors and reports — like this one from Knoxville Fanrun Sports — Adidas has emerged as a potential replacement for Nike.

Vol Twitter (X) reacted accordingly. Adidas was wildly unpopular during the final few years of their stint with the Volunteers, giving Tennessee some truly bad looks in the mid 2010s.

Even Al Wilson voiced his opinion on the potential move.

To be fair to Adidas, they’ve come a long way from their jersey patterns that they forced on us back in the day. Still, the clean looks that Nike has given us will be difficult to be topped. The bad memories from the end of the Adidas era will certainly be on top of everyone’s minds if the move is made. Even more recently, Adidas has come out with bold new looks that everyone seems to hate, like this one on the basketball side. That doesn’t exactly give much confidence that things would be better this time around.

Keep in mind too that this would be for all sports too, as well as off-field apparel.

Apparel contracts for college sports have ballooned into the multi-million per year range over the last couple of decades. Nike has shelled out big money to the likes of Alabama, Texas, Georgia and Clemson while Under Armor inked a near $100 million deal with Notre Dame several years ago.

As always, it’s all about the money. Even more so nowadays. The odds are pretty good that the highest bidder will take this deal past the finish line.

“I don’t care what they wear, just win games.” Yeah, yeah. Whatever you think about the importance of jerseys or apparel, it’s still a massive deal here that Danny White is about to decide on.