Adidas: We want to sign Kaepernick to endorsement deal if he finds a team

The president of Adidas’s North America division said the company wants to sign Colin Kaepernick to an endorsement deal if the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback can find a new team.

“If he signs on a team, we would definitely want to sign him,” Mark King said Friday in Phoenix, AZ Central reported.

King noted the company doesn’t want to come off as “taking advantage of this noise or interest that he had generated.”

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“We love athletes that have a platform to make the world a better place,” King said.

“If they’re an activist in a way that brings attention to something that moves the world forward, even if there’s controversy at that moment, we’re really interested in those athletes because I think it represents the world today.”

He added Adidas isn’t in the business of activism.

“But allowing our athletes to tell their story, it’s really important to us,” he said.

NFL players have protested social justice issues, such as police brutality, since the 2016 season, by either kneeling or raising a fist during the national anthem.

Kaepernick was the first NFL player to kneel when he did so during the 2016 season.

President Trump last year threw the issue into the spotlight when he attacked NFL players who kneel during the anthem.

Trump called for the NFL to implement a rule requiring players to stand during the anthem and called for team owners to fire players for participating in the protest.

After Trump’s comments, multiple players in the NFL proceeded to kneel or protest when the national anthem played ahead of their games.

Kaepernick recently had a visit with the Seattle Seahawks postponed by the team when he would not commit to standing during the national anthem in the future.