Adidas (ADS.DE) announced that it will place remaining Yeezy products back on shelves after previous severing ties with musical artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, due to anti-semitic comments made by Ye. A press release from Adidas reports that it will sell remaining inventory in phases throughout the course of the year.
Yahoo Finance Reporters Pras Subramanian, Alexandra Canal, and Josh Schafer join the Live show to break down the latest development for Adidas and what it could mean for the company moving forward.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
JOSH SCHAFER: And today, we're kicking things off with Adidas making the decision to sell its remaining inventory of Yeezy shoes. Those shoes were created by Ye, the music artist and fashion designer, formerly known as Kanye West. Now this decision comes after the sports brand cut ties with Ye that ended a decade long partnership.
This, of course, came after Ye made a series of anti-Semitic comments, a pretty public breakup for Kanye West or Ye and Adidas. And really the fallout has been what to do with this popular brand of shoes. Yeezys were very popular. They even had sweatshirts, clothing brand that went with the shoes.
And Adidas had come out and originally said they weren't really sure what they were going to do with them. Then they offloaded some of the inventory. They sold some of the inventory. It's a high demand on the website, I should mention. I remember we were tracking that over the summer at one point. And the shoes were really, kind of, flying off the shelves.
And now it seems like Adidas coming back out and saying, again, they're going to just sell more of these shoes, because it seems like people want them. And also, it's a way for Adidas to get rid of them. I mean, there was one point, guys, where they were debating basically almost lighting the shoes on fire or throwing-- they didn't know what to do with the shoes. And it seems like the solution has just been to sell.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, it was almost a multi-billion dollar writedown of that whole sort of deal. And then cut to now, and they can't sell-- they can't sell them fast enough, right? They--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah.
JOSH SCHAFER: --the first batch. They sold the second batch of a colorway that-- by the way, Ye says that he did not approve this colorway. He's not making any money off this. But who knows what's going on? I'm not sure if they paid him out already or if there's some sort of back end there. But regardless of what he's saying, people are still buying these shoes. And I'm frankly a little surprised.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah, I think it just points to the complicated relationship that can happen sometimes between consumers, brands, and creators. And I was thinking about just the type of consumer that would want this shoe. It's the sneakerheads. It's the people that are really obsessed with shoes at the end of the day.
And no matter what the circumstance is, some of those people want to be involved or have a piece of sneaker history, I mean, Yeezys, you hear them. You know what they are. You know it's an Adidas shoe. It's something that, I think, gets people excited. It is interesting to see that the demand is still there, despite it all.
And Adidas has-- since terminating that partnership with Ye, they have donated to organizations to combat discrimination and hate including racism and anti-Semitism. But I'm sure that they're going to receive some backlash for this as well.
JOSH SCHAFER: Oh, absolutely. And I think the collectors part of this you bring up is interesting too, right? When you think about how popular these shoes were in the collector space to think that they're probably never going to be made again. And this is essentially your last chance--
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Oh, yes, right, right.
JOSH SCHAFER: --to buy a fresh pair of Yeezys and probably never wear them, because that's what-- if you're really sneaker collecting, you're probably never going to actually wear them. You keep the tags on them. And there's probably some people thinking maybe these have value 10 or 15 years down the line, because they were a popular shoe of the moment.
And maybe some of-- as people sort of, I hate to say, forget about that backlash as time goes on, but we know, over time, people will start to not remember all of the backlash to some extent. And they will just be Yeezy shoes. And maybe they hold some sort of value there. Maybe that's part of why people are still interested in them.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah, the news cycle definitely very quick, I think, there.
