Filed Under » sports business

Saying in a press release that "athletes deserve better than the imperfect product they're using," Nike announced today that they are rolling out a line of ACLs, making the company the first to capitalize on the 7 billion-plus ACL market.

"Each day, athletes around the world are done in by their current ACLs failing on them," said Nike president and CEO Mike Parker. "That's not good enough. People don't play sports in bare feet anymore and they shouldn't compete with the ACLs they get at birth either. Soon the best athletes will have Nike swooshes on their shoes and inside their knees."

Using a patented, synthetic material that the company claims is "more durable and impossible to tear," NikeCLs, as the product is named, are already being sold in Foot Locker and Dick's Sporting Goods stores across the nation. Consumers will pick out Nike Swoosh-emblazoned ACL replacement in the color they desire and then a store employee will slice open their knee, cut out the existing ACL and install the NikeCL.

"We suspect that there will be some initial trepidation about having a major surgery done on your knee by, say, a 19 year-old Foot Locker employee who may or may not be attending community college," said Parker. "But we promise that all surgeries will be done by staff members who have seen a 15-minute training video. There is nothing to worry about."

The sports apparel company Under Armour announced that it is releasing a collection of "prom performance attire" this coming spring.

The collection includes six tight-fitting, breathable gowns designed for athletic females — a demographic, according to the company, that believes competition and elegance should coexist.

The dresses were unveiled Wednesday morning at a press conference, where six heavily muscled women sported the dresses and stood in traditional prom poses, their fibrous arms holding punching bags instead of dates. The women stood under a sign that read, THIS YEAR, PROMINATE YOUR DATE, and proceeded to demonstrate a cardio-intense interpretation of a slow dance that culminated with the women body slamming tuxedoed mannequins through fluorescent lamps.

Adidas today announced a unique design approach to college football uniforms, vowing the company will seek to differentiate itself from its competitors with uniform styles that "don't look like crap" or make fans "want to pluck out their eyes and throw them in a sewer."

"The Nike Pro Combat series and the Under Armour Maryland uniforms have been getting a lot of attention," said Adidas America president Patrik Nilsson. "So we held a meeting on how to counter them. After a while, one young designer raised his hand and said: 'Oooh! I know! Why don't we make uniforms that don't look like shit?'"

Adidas decided to give the idea a chance and took it to several focus groups.

"Overwhelmingly, we found that people prefer uniforms that look 'nice', 'cool' and 'classic' over those they feel are 'designed by Satan', 'appear as though a cat vomited on it' and 'makes you wonder if the designer went to a rival school and is playing a prank on the team that he hates'," said Nilsson. "It was really eye-opening."