There's no harm in a little argument as long as it doesn't get personal here's my 2 cents about this matter:
I also believe that they aren't the pioneers and i understand your feeling that they dont feel like a football maker. your argument that nike is in it now for the money and not the football makes sense, but you have to remember that Adidas grew as a company because they realized that they can make so much money as well. it's all about business. so i dont really see the difference now (if adidas still made shoes for fun, then i'd say that i'd go for adidas). Adidas are also trying to compete in the NFL products. Reebok are also trying with NBA. it's all business.
About nike being a US biased company. i dont think that biased is the proper word becasuse their intention is just business. they have a bigger and they are more settled in the NFL and NBA that it makes sense for them to have a bigger market there. (they've been making risks for many years in getting in to football, but they know that once they're sttled in Europe, they will make so much. That's why i think their football development headquarters is in italy now.
you say that "what they think works for them is all that matters."
it's business. every company in the world looks for it's own benifit. but this is not the reason why they really sucked a long time ago. the reason is that they were new to footbal, they had no experience and they thought they could apply NFL or NBA rules of marketing with football (they were very niave). it's not really about how much they care about football, it's more about their experience in the business.
ESPN also thinks the same. they want to make money, so they are taking big risks in buying righst for europeans soccer games. they might not get enough viewers to match the price they paid for it. that's why they dont want to buy too much of it. so they're going easy into it and they're just waiting for the demand for soccer in the US to increase.
but please keep in mind that i still sgree adidas is better, and i also hated how nike thought they could get away with their older "abyssmal" kits.