Sneakerheads say Adidas has one man to thank for its comeback

In May of last year, I asked, “Can Kanye West save Adidas?” Eighteen months later, it appears the answer was yes—if you ask so-called “sneakerheads,” that is, the devoted shoe collectors whose interests carry so much sway in the footwear business.

But Adidas executives, and some analysts, are more hesitant to put the company’s recent success on West’s shoulders.

Among sports apparel brands, Adidas took the crown in 2016. The German sports giant clawed back market share in the US athletic footwear market, where it had struggled for five years; it regained favor among sneaker obsessives; its stock leapt more than 50% while shares of competitors Nike and Under Armour fell.

In short, Adidas made the three stripes cool again in America. It’s why Yahoo Finance named the company our Sports Business of the Year for 2016.

And sneakerheads insist Kanye West is to thank for all of it.

Always a headline-grabber, Kanye West unfortunately had his share of negative events this year. Aside from his usual rants (including an uneven four-minute speech at the MTV VideoMusic Awards) and controversies (his NSFW “Famous” video, his ongoing, Snapchat-fueled feud with Taylor Swift), West was forced to stop a show mid-set in October upon hearing that his wife, Kim Kardashian West, had been robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Sadly, West ended 2016 on a worrisome — to say the least — note, first attracting ire for his defense of President-elect Donald Trump at a San Jose concert. He followed this shortly after with an attack on fellow star Beyoncé at his Sacramento tour stop, then abruptly cancelled all further dates on his tour. News quickly circulated that he’d been hospitalized as a result of exhaustion. He was released at the end of November, just in time to catch wind of his five 2017 Grammy nominations. (Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
Kanye West (WireImage)

Debating the Kanye Effect

Adidas first signed Kanye West to a limited design partnership in 2013; he had originally been under contract with Nike. The signing alone brought buzz to the brand, but after he signed with Adidas, West also publicly trashed Nike, complaining that the company stifled his creativity; that was additional good press for Adidas. At a free concert to kick off NBA All-Star Weekend last year, West shouted to the crowd, “We ain’t wearing that other company no more, right?”

In early February 2015, Adidas released the first fruit of its union with West: the Yeezy Boost 750, retailing for $350. It put out just 9,000 pairs, available only in New York and only through the Adidas sneaker app; they sold out in under 10 minutes. Later in the month, the company released more of them, but not many more.

Since then, it has released the Yeezy Boost 350 and a number of other shoes, always in extremely small supply. Many of them end up on eBay, listed at over $1,000.

Adidas has never said exactly how many pairs of Yeezy Boost sneakers it has made available, but it has steadfastly kept the supply limited to stoke demand. And it’s worked.

Kanye West’s Yeezy Boost 750 shoes at an Adidas fashion show in New York. (Reuters)
Kanye West’s Yeezy Boost 750 shoes at an Adidas fashion show in New York. (Reuters)

Collaborations between fashion brands and celebrities are typically tiny in terms of product volume. Think of it this way: Adidas sold more than 300 million pairs of shoes last year. Of those, “I’d be surprised if they made 50,000 pairs of Kanye West shoes,” says NPD Group retail analyst Matt Powell.

If you ask Powell, the supply has been so limited that West cannot be credited with sparking Adidas’s comeback in the States. In fact, Powell gives the West partnership very little weight.

Powell attributes the brand’s success this year far more to its product pipeline: non-Yeezy sneakers like the UltraBoost, Flux, and NMDs, (all launched in the past three years) and the refresh of classic Originals like the Superstars and Stan Smiths. He also points to a major reorganization at Adidas Group that involved moving hundreds of employees from the Germany headquarters to the US headquarters in Portland, Ore.