Adidas will donate $150 million from the sales of Kanye West’s Yeezy shoe line to groups that combat antisemitic hate, the company said Wednesday, a move that comes after Adidas and other brands severed ties with the rapper after a series of offensive comments in 2022.
Adidas recorded a roughly $330 million profit off of Yeezy inventory in 2023 after the brand ended its roughly $1.5 billion deal with West, the Associated Press reported, and is expected to make another $270 million selling the remaining stock this year.
Donations have so far gone to the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change.
Wednesday’s announcement came as Germany-based Adidas posted its first annual loss in more than three decades and warned investors that North American sales will likely continue to fall in 2024, with an estimated 5% drop in the region over the year.
Adidas reported an operating profit of $293 million in 2023, a 60% drop from the roughly $731 reported last year, but still higher than expected.CEO Bjørn Gulden said 2023 “ended better than what I had expected at the beginning of the year,” largely thanks to the Yeezy sell off.
Shares of Adidas were trading at $105.35, up almost 2%, ahead of the market open Wednesday.
$1.3 billion. That’s how much Adidas’ Yeezy stockpile was said to be worth when it broke off its partnership with West.
Kanye West, who now goes by the name Ye, made antisemetic comments and make bizarre comments about Jewish people in interviews and social media posts in October 2022. Soon after, brands like Balenciaga, Adidas, Gap and Foot Locker dropped their deals with the musician, his wax figure was removed from Madame Tussauds and several athletes cut their ties with West’s Donda Sports.
West dropped out of the public eye for months after the controversy and appeared on stage again for the first time in August of 2023 alongside Travis Scott in Rome. In November of last year, he performed his song “Vultures” live for the first time in Dubai, including a line that seemed to address the backlash with the lyric “How am I antisemitic?” before adding a vulgar description of having sex with a Jewish woman. The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee condemned what they called a “particularly pathetic and sad” resurfacing of anti-Jewish rhetoric. West in December of 2023 “sincerely” apologized to the Jewish community and said it was “not my intent to hurt or disrespect, and I very much regret any pain I may have caused.” West released his first album since the controversy, called “Vultures 1,” with Ty Dolla $ign in February. The album immediately shot to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart and lead single “Carnival” debuted near the top of the Hot 100. The album grossed more than $1 million in its first week, according to Billboard.
Another album. “Vultures 2” was slated to be released last week but missed its expected date.
The end of his deal with Adidas saw West drop off the Forbes billionaires list in October of 2022. The end of the partnership is estimated to have cost West $1.5 billion. He was worth an estimated $1.8 billion in 2021 and $2 billion in 2022. He’s worth an estimated $400 million today.
