Adidas announced on Wednesday that it will contribute $150 million from the sales of Kanye West’s Yeezy shoe line to organizations that figҺt antisemitic hate. This comes after Adidas and other firms cut relations with the rapper in 2022 following a slew of inflammatory comments.
After ending its roughly $1.5 billiоn arrangement with West, Adidas registered a profit of around $330 million off of its Yeezy inventory in 2023, according to the Associated Press. This year, the brand is anticipated to gain an additional $270 million from the sale of the remaining stock.
Thus far, contributions have been made to the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change and the Anti-Defamation League.
The news was made on Wednesday, the same day that Germany-based Adidas reported its first yearly loss in over thirty years and forewarned investors that North American sales in 2024 will probably decline further, with a projected 5% decline in the region.
Adidas recorded an operational profit of $293 million in 2023, which was more than projected while being a 60% decrease from the approximately $731 reported in the previous year.2023 “ended better than what I had expected at the beginning of the year,” according to CEO Bjørn Gulden, mainly because of the Yeezy sell down.
Adidas’s stock was up over 2% at $105.35, just before the market opened on Wednesday.
LARGE AMOUNT $1.3 billiоn. When Adidas and West parted ways, the Yeezy stash was estimated to be valued at that much.
ESSENTIAL PREFACE
In October 2022, Kanye West, who is now going by Ye, made strange and antisemitic remarks regarding Jews in social media posts and interviews. Soon after, the musician’s wax figure was taken out of Madame Tussauds, several athletes severed their ties with West’s Donda Sports, and companies like Balenciaga, Adidas, Gap, and Foot Locker canceled their contracts with him.
ANGENT
Following the uproar, West disappeared from the public glare for several months before making his stage comeback with Travis Scott in Rome in August 2023. When he sang “Vultures” live for the first time in Dubai in November of last year, he included a line that seemed to address the criticism, asking, “How am I antisemitic?” before going on to describe having with a Jewish woman in a crude way. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League denounced the “particularly pathetic and sad” reappearance of anti-Semitic discourse. West “sincerely” apologized to the Jewish community in December 2023, stating that it was “not my intent to hurt or disrespect,” and that “I very much regret any pаin I may have caused.” In February, West and Ty Dolla $ign released “Vultures 1,” his first album since the incident. The lead song, “Carnival,” debuted close to the top of the Hоt 100, and the album instantly rocketed to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart. Billboard reports that the record made over $1 million in its first week of sales.