Adidas poised to sell Yeezy under new name sans Kanye West

Adidas’ relationship with Ye spanned close to a decade

Adidas is gearing up to sell Kanye West’s Yeezy shoes without the Yeezy label, as per Business Insider.

The CFO of Adidas, Harm Ohlmeyer, doubled down on the point that his company owned the designs it made with Ye.

“Adidas is the sole owner of all design rights registered to existing product,” he said. “We intend to make use of these rights as early as 2023.”

The sportswear giant traced its partnership with Ye in 2013. The nine-year-long relationship proved to be a boon but turbulent.

Ultimately, Adidas was spurred to cut ties with the Donda rapper on October 25 after his anti-Semitic tirades.

Earlier, the Grammy winner sparred with Adidas management, including in June when he publicly criticized the A-list brand for releasing slides that resembled the Yeezy Slide, calling them “a fake YEEZY made by Adidas themselves.”

“I’m not standing for this blatant copying no more,” he posted on Instagram, reacting harshly to images of the Adidas Adilette slide.

Ohlmeyer was posed a question by a reporter asking if there was any reputational risk to the brand on continuing with Yeezy products without its creator artist.

“We are working through all the options,” Ohlmeyer said. “When the time is right, we will be more specific.”

The cutoff with Ye has led Adidas to take a $247 million hit this year. Moreover, Ohlmeyer confirmed that the company’s annual revenue would be nearly $502 million lower than expected this year.

However, Adidas will save around $302 million in 2023 due to not paying the royalties and marketing costs to Ye’s Yeezy business.

[via]