(BusinessWeek.com) — A few months after the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, Adidas Chief Executive Officer Herbert Hainer was visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida when he received an urgent call on his cell phone. Horst Schmidt, then general secretary of Germany’s national soccer federation, told Hainer that Nike (NKE) was trying to sign the German national team—an Adidas team since 1954—to an exclusive sponsorship.
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