Arizona State has agreed to an exclusive long term licensing contract with Adidas to outfit all of its varsity sports beginning in July of 2015, the school announced Tuesday.

The agreement is worth $33.8 million in shoes, uniforms, other equipment and cash over the eight year agreement, or $4,225,000 annually. That's twice as much as Nike is providing to ASU in cash and apparel in 2014-15, the final year of a relationship that has lasted since 2005.

ASU will retain ownership of its trademarks of Sparky, the school's mascot, as well as its Pitchfork logo and Sun Devil Bold lettering font, according to school officials.

"We are very appreciative of the partnership because what we saw in this opportunity was an investment partner, a partner who realized our current value now but also a partner who was able to share our vision and project how we would be valued and how our brand would be perceived two, three, four, five, six years from now," ASU Vice President or Athletics Ray Anderson said.

According to several industry resources including the Portland Businss Journal, the deal puts ASU among the Top-10 schools in similar apparel contracts and second in the Pac-12 behind only UCLA, which is also the only current Adidas affiliated school in the Pac-12.

"There's a very robust product allotment that covers all of our current sports and then automatically increases to cover future varsity sports, for instance hockey and whatever may come next," Anderson said. "With regard to special orders for unique occasions like breast cancer awareness or military appreciation, those uniforms will be provided by our new partner Adidas over and above the base uniforms amounts. The band and spirit squad were specifically covered because we believe those members of our team deserve and merit a lot of attention for their hard work."

ASU will become one of 12 NCAA schools to partner with Adidas in this fashion, joining Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan, Mississippi State, Nebraska, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Wisconsin, in addition to UCLA. The last such agreement came with Mississippi State in 2009.

"This is the kind of association we're looking for because we don't want to just hang our banner here and provide products for you," said Adidas Group North American President Mark King. "We want to experiment and do things and to help really make the experience here at Arizona State the kind of athletic experience that any kid would want.

"There's a lot of kids here so we get to tell our story to 88,000 kids roaming around these four campuses so we like that a lot. I think there's great value here at many levels."

Adidas is also committing to provide 12 sponsored internships in a variety of academic fields including law, business and journalism to ASU students, as well as to outfit its band and spirit squad. It will also contribute to helping ASU promote and develop its programs and facilities, officials said.

While Nike required ASU to pay for the development and manufacturing of new alternate jerseys, including up to $400,000 for specific concepts, Adidas will fund all such looks under the terms of the agreement, an ASU source said.

"When Ray and I sat down and tried to figure out a strategy of going forward with a new partner, we set our goals very high and were going to be very aggressive and that's kind of the approach we were going to take with all of our deals that are coming up and the business we'll be doing in the future," said Greg McElroy, ASU Associate Vice President and Chief Development Officer. "Adidas did step up and we set the bar very high."

Anderson spoke of the benefits of the Adidas brand and scope of products in Olympic sports and also its ownership of TaylorMade-Adidas Golf equipment and CCM, a hockey equipment company.

Regarding any potential uniform changes, Anderson said ASU would be very cautious about changes to its on-field look in football and other sports.

"I don't think drastic will occur," Anderson said. "We'll do it deliberately, very appropriately, hopefully very artistically. It'll be a combination of their input and ours because at the end of the day we're the customer, they are our uniforms, this is our tradition."