A few months ago adidas decided to cancel their partnership with Kanye “Alt-Right” West due to his antisemitic tweets and statements and in the process recalled all their Yeezy related products from Foot Lockers and other participating stores across the board.
Now TMZ is reporting that Adidas has hoarded a half a billion dollars worth of Yeezy’s in their warehouses and no clear idea on what to do with them going forward. Though Adidas has made it known that they’ll continue to release all OG Yeezy sneakers and silhouettes without the Yeezy brand on them, it looks like they’ll be sitting on a ton of Yeezy products for the time being.
Per the report, the inventory the company has amounts to about $530 million … and Adidas is apparently eager to hawk them to avoid taking an even bigger hit than what it’s publicly disclosed thus far — which was already looking quite grim for end-of-year numbers.On top of the staggering amount of shoes it has to move — which Adidas is reportedly scrambling to figure out how to do it — the FT story goes into some detail about how deeply tied it was to Yeezys and to what extent Adidas was hinging its success on it.Though many thought that the resale value of Yeezy sneakers would skyrocket due to Adidas cutting ties with the controversial rapper, the value of said sneakers only has only jumped up a few dollars in the weeks following the dissolving of the Kanye and Adidas partnership. Still, Adidas can resale their inventory on the low and the secondary market if they want to recoup that money and then some, but they can’t be public about it as the backlash will be swift and merciless. Just sayin.’It will be interesting to see how sneakerheads react to the release of the first unofficial “Yeezy” sneaker dubbed the Adidas 350 V2 “Granite” when it drops in January for $230 ($10 cheaper than the average Yeezy). Without the Yeezy branding, many sneaker aficionados feel like the 350 V2 Boosts aren’t anything more than a $150 pair of kicks.What do y’all think Adidas should do with the remaining pairs of Yeezy’s they have in their possession? Should they resell them? Destroy them? Give them away? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
