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April 2, 2006

Does The Warranty Cover "Looking Crappy"?

Just when I was about to get excited about innovation in basketball design

For the avoidance of doubt and in the interests of full disclosure, I tend to be something of a sucker for innovative and/ or colorful product design and/ or packaging. That is, if you wrap your product in some shiny colors (or, even better, put those shiny colors on the product itself), there's a pretty good chance I'm going to buy it. There. It's out in the open. (Though if you've met me in the past ten years, all of the above is completely obvious, almost to an awkward degree.)

So it should come as no surprise that as soon as I saw this fancy new adidas basketball (in the adidas store on Houston Street in New York), I knew I would buy it. I mean, I needed a basketball anyway, and if someone was going to make a cool-looking basketball, well, that made it all the easier.

Generally speaking, basketballs are pretty boring. Anything above the rubber-promotional-item level tends to be orange. And that's it. In 35 years, no one has done much more than the red, white and blue panels of the old ABA balls (something that the current NBDL is encouragingly getting down with as well). Compare this with soccer balls, which are constantly evolving (both in their actual construction as well as the pretty designs on the balls). Nike and adidas (among others) roll out cool-looking new balls every two years or so. And, in all honesty, their designs have yet to suggest any staleness; I expect cool new soccer-ball designs for the forseeable future.

Still, apart from the occasional variation on the panels, basketball design has remained relatively static. Which is why the stripes running perpendicular to the panels around the circumference of the ball was so exciting. That's exactly the sort of thing that gets my attention in a retail environment, and it's exactly the sort of thing that gets me excited about the possible dawn of a new era of basketball design(!).

The Adidas store in C@L had the ball in black and in white, but obviously the white was the pony to bet on. (And, at $19.99, I didn't even have to feel guilty about the impulse purchase; that's like three beers at a Sonics game.) I mean, I assumed that the white meant it might get dirty with use. I was cool with that. The label and web site indicated that it was suitable for use on all surfaces. So it might get dirty, but it would definitely survive. And even if it got dirty, that was cool. It would make it look tough(!).

I guess it looks tough now. But mostly it looks like all the cool stripes have worn off. Check out the photo of how my cool new ball looked after only four (4) uses:

Seriously, this is after only four (4) uses. Granted, they were all outside, but it still looks pretty beat up. I mean, it plays fine, and well, it definitely looks tough, but it's kind of disappointing from an aesthetic perspective. Sigh.

I just hope this doesn't discourage the good people at adidas from making more cool-looking basketballs. I mean, I'll definitely keep buying them...I mean, how can I not, when my original cool-looking one looks so worn out now?

(And yes, I've already been over this; and again, only $19.99!)

Posted by thatkid at April 2, 2006 11:57 PM under Biznass

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