Big brands as Adidas always have to move forward. One way of doing this is to move into new sports. Now they are moving into a multi million-dollar market that is growing fast: Fighting cloths to mixed martial arts. It is the most extreme fighting sport that is on the market (legally). There are sport cloths brands as Tapout and Affliction how is wild but are so popular that its now spreading to mainstream stores. At the same time are brands as Adidas getting into the sport. This is a strong acknowledgement for the sport. For Adidas it is a way of staying on top of the sport cloth market.

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a combat sport in which a wide variety of fighting techniques are used, including striking and grappling. Wikipedia.org

In my opinion one of the driving force in MMA is our strong will to overcome fear. It is Television and different magazines are spreading MMA and the tribes of fans are getting big. Stars as Randy Couture is a good role model and is supported by Affliction. Sport events as UFC is a bit to wild for a lot of channels and audience, that why IFL fight night are delivered in a culture frame of American football. The main reason for doing so is to let IFL become a switch product from American football to MMA, just like Ipod made PC users go over to Apple.
I am following a new MMA clothes brand from the beginning; it is a lot of fun to do so. But when it comes to quality, these consumers in are extreme! Fighting consumers can even beat up strong brands as Adidas. But for Adidas this is a learning market and for them it can be as for the Punk culture, they colored there here and now it is a mainstream market that easily can grow into a billion-dollar market for them. An advice for Adidas:

Did meet an old friend Larry how I haven’t meet for a long time, did know that he did was dead serious with his sport training in martial art. So I asked Larry how it was going with the training. He said strait: “it is so strange Stefan, I have been training al my life so hard, to become the word champion. And now when I have deiced to lay off, I suddenly became the world champignon in Thai boxing.” It is sort of the same thing with advertising, now is the time to stop hunting consumers with advertising. In other words it can be good to: Step back to go forward (even if you are an super brand).