Adidas said Wednesday that it had sold its last pair of Yeezys, a wildly popular and profitable sneaker brand it developed with the rapper and designer Ye, as it tried to move past the publicity nightmare that followed after Ye’s antisemitic comments.
The sportswear giant severed ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in 2022 after he posted antisemitic remarks on social media and made other offensive comments publicly. Adidas had said that ending its nearly decade-long collaboration with the American entertainer cost it nearly 250 million euros that year.
The rapper apologized to the Jewish community in 2022 only to later retract his apology in a barrage of social media posts in February in which he declared he was a Nazi.
The sale of Adidas’s remaining Yeezy inventory generated about €50 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, boosting the company’s overall revenue to €5.97 billion, up 24 percent from a year earlier, Adidas said Wednesday in an earnings report.
But the sports brand was cautious in its outlook, cutting its revenue growth forecast for 2025 to 10 percent, from 12 percent last year. It was the first time, the company said, that the outlook did not include revenue from the Yeezy line.
The breakup was hardest felt in North America, where the apparel was driven by the Grammy-winning rapper’s popularity. “Sales in North America declined 2 percent solely due to significantly lower Yeezy sales,” said Adidas, which is based in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
Bjorn Gulden, who became chief executive in 2023, said the company would cut up to 500 jobs at its headquarters to shift decision-making to offices around the globe. “We need to reduce complexity,” he said, adding that it made little sense for employees in Germany to decide what was needed in markets abroad.
After ending its ties with Ye, the apparel company struggled with slowing sales and revelations that it had ignored the rapper’s misconduct for years. The severed contract also left Adidas with mountains of sneakers and clothing, and potential losses of €1.2 billion in sales and about €500 million in profit last year.
Under Mr. Gulden, Adidas decided in 2023 not to write off the remaining Yeezy stock but sell it and donate part of the profit to organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.
On Wednesday, Mr. Gulden struck an optimistic tone, signaling the company’s eagerness to put the Yeezy scandal behind it with new celebrity collaborations and a focus on other popular sneaker lines, like the Samba, a decades’ old brand that has had a resurgence in popularity.
“With all the challenges out there, let’s not forget that there are so many fun things to look forward to in 2025,” Mr. Gulden said.’
Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from Berlin.
