Adidas swallowed hard when it capitulated to public pressure and abruptly terminated its partnership with Kanye West and halted the manufacture of the Yeezy shoe design.
Now that they’ve emerged from the PR rubble and debris left by Ye’s blatantly antisemitic diatribes, Adidas announced it intends to resuscitate Ye’s shoe line, without using the Yeezy name.
According to USA Today, Adidas is the sole owner of the Yeezy shoe design rights. Because of this, it will get the sneakers back on the veritable assembly line as early as 2023.
The reasons behind it are simple: Adidas reportedly lost $250 million in profits after it broke off the partnership with the rapper now legally called Ye. Moreover, the shoe and apparel goliath also suffered $500 million in lost revenue.
“As publicly communicated on October 25, we had terminated the partnership with Ye immediately, ended production of Yeezy branded products and stopped all payments to Ye and his companies,” Adidas finance chief Harm Ohlmeyer said on Nov. 9, according to USA Today.
Adidas will now make and sell the same kind of sneakers under its own branding, which they stated will save the company more than $300 million in royalty payments and marketing fees.
“Going forward, we will leverage the existing inventory with the exact plans being developed as we speak,” Ohlmeyer added.
Ye incurred the demolition of his lucrative partnership with Adidas and half of his financial empire when he began going on antisemitic tirades in October 2022 that began with the foreboding tweet that he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The post, which was deleted by Twitter, also stated Ye’s declaration that “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball [sic] anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
An unrepentant Ye exacerbated his situation when he doubled down on the incendiary remarks in consecutive television interviews with Chris Cuomo, Fox News and Piers Morgan. This subsequently resulted in Ye losing his partnerships with major corporations like Gap, Balenciaga, Foot Locker and others.
