Adidas Is Currently Losing $1.3 Billion In Unsold Yeezy Shoes

Adidas is losing $1.3 billion in profits as it maintains a stockpile of unsold Yeezy shoes, Billboard reports. Seven months ago, the mega sporting company ended its partnership with Kanye “Ye” West following the rapper’s string of antisemitic comments and it’s still trying to climb out of a financial hole.

Adidas is reportedly “getting closer and closer to making a decision” about the stockpile of Yeezy shoes in warehouses, but the “options are narrowing,” according to the company’s new CEO Bjorn Gulden.

Gulden was asked in a conference call if destroying the shoes was an option, but he admitted that Adidas is “trying to avoid that”. However, Adidas also doesn’t plan on selling the shoes and handing profits back over to Ye.

Billboard also notes that since ending the Ye partnership, Adidas lost 600 million euros in halted sales in the last three months of 2022.

Ye was dropped by Adidas and his record label, Def Jam Recordings, seven months ago. While Ye's contract with Def Jam Recordings concluded in 2021, after the release of Donda, his own label, G.O.O.D. Music is no longer affiliated with the company as of October 2022. It's unclear if the label dropped Ye due to recent remarks; a representative declined to comment. 

The end of partnerships with Adidas and Def Jam followed Ye’s getting locked out of Facebook and Instagram after spouting antisemitic rhetoric.  

Following his suspension on Instagram, West took to Twitter to continue his antisemitic agenda, tweeting: "I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE. The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda." 

The family of George Floyd also plans to sue the musician for $250 million because of his comments ("They hit him with the fentanyl if you look, the guys knew wasn't even on his neck like that").

In an attempt to apologise for those comments, Ye said, “I want to apologise [inaudible] because God has shown me by what Adidas is doing and by what the media is doing, I know how it feels to have a knee on my neck now.

“So thank you, God, for humbling me and letting me know how it really felt. Because how could the richest Black man ever be humbled other than to be made to not be a billionaire in front of everyone off one comment."