Source: Jonathan Leibson/Getty
adidas announced that they will be donating millions of dollars from the sales of their rest Yeezy shoes to anti-hate groups.
On Wednesday (March 13), German sportswear giant adidas announced that it planned to, and in some cases already did, donate $150 million to groups fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of hate from sales of the remaining Yeezy shoes. The company had $1.3 billion worth of sneakers in its warehouses created from its collaboration with Ye aka Kanye West.
The company began selling its remaining shares in batches after cutting ties with West in October 2022 following his tyranny of anti-Semitic and other hateful comments on social media and in interviews. After the breakup, adidas sold Yeezy shoes in two batches in 2023 and started another sale on February 26 this year. Some of the proceeds donated have gone to groups like the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, which is run by social justice advocate Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd (who was the subject of one of Kanye West's rants). as well as the Anti-Defamation League.
Adidas said the sales helped stabilize its operating profit at $283 million last year – it still ended leaving the company facing a 60% deficit compared to 2022. “Although far from good enough, 2023 ended better than what I expected at the start of the year,” said adidas chief executive Bjørn Gulden, the former footballer who took over at the start of 2023 and he argued for selling Yeezys and donating a portion of the proceeds. The company expects to improve growth by about 10% in the second half of 2024 with a greater focus on other shoes and a boost from this summer's Olympics in Paris, according to its earnings report.
Ye is not too happy with the sales of adidas Yeezys. As the new batch launched in February with the “Steel Grey” 350 V2 edition, he expressed his displeasure in the caption of a now-deleted Instagram post. “Anyone who loves Ye would not buy these fake Yeezys. I never made these colorways, I don't get paid for them and adidas sued me,” he wrote, adding, “All new unsanctioned 350's are very good and everyone I know the 350 was crazy.”
