Adidas Poised To Lose A Staggering Amount Of Money Over Kanye West Fallout

Kanye West standing in front of Adidas and Yeezy logos

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It’s hard to think of many people who’ve experienced a more dramatic fall from grace than Kanye West, a man who bulldozed the hip-hop landscape in the early 2000s before successfully conquering the world of fashion.

While you obviously can’t ignore the well-documented mental health issues that contributed to the rapper’s demise, they also don’t excuse the string of anti-Semitic comments that resulted in the now-disgraced icon being kicked to the curb by Balenciaga and losing his lucrative partnership with Gap.

West also tempted fate in an interview where he bragged he could say literally anything he wanted to without getting dropped by Adidas, the company that had been producing his wildly sought-after Yeezy shoes and other apparel since 2015.

However, it didn’t take very long for the man now known as “Ye” to go from the “F—k Around” Phrase to the “Find Out” part after uttering those words.

Last October, the brand announced it had opted to end its relationship with West and immediately shutter the Yeezy line while ceasing sales of the hundreds of millions of dollars of preexisting inventory it had in its possession.

Adidas estimated that decision would force it to eat around $250 million in the final quarter of 2022, and that number has only gotten higher based on what it had to say in a financial report that was released on Thursday.

The company placed the bulk of the blame on West while discussing the fiscal woes it’s currently facing, as it projects it will lose close to $750 million in operating losses over the course of 2023. It said the decision to stop selling Yeezy apparel was the primary factor in the $1.28 billion drop in revenue it’s currently facing, although CEO Bjørn Gulden added, “We are currently not performing the way we should.”

I’m certainly not an expert in this particular realm, but that seems less than ideal.

Connor Toole avatar and headshot for BroBible
Connor Toole is the Deputy Editor at BroBible. He is a New England native who went to Boston College and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Frequently described as "freakishly tall," he once used his 6'10" frame to sneak in the NBA Draft and convince people he was a member of the Utah Jazz.