Adidas

Type

Aktiengesellschaft

Industry

Apparel, accessories

Founded

July 1924; 95 years ago (as Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik)

August 18, 1949; 69 years ago (as Adidas)

Products

Herzogenaurach, Germany

Website

http://www.adidas-group.com/
Adidas AG (German: [ˈʔadiˌdas] AH-dee-DAHS; stylized as ɑdidɑs since 1949) is a multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade golf company (including Ashworth), 8.33% of the German football club Bayern Munich, and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas’ revenue for 2018 was listed at €21.915 billion.

The company was started by Adolf Dassler in his mother’s house; he was joined by his elder brother Rudolf in 1924 under the name Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory. Dassler assisted in the development of spiked running shoes (spikes)
for multiple athletic events. To enhance the quality of spiked athletic
footwear, he transitioned from a previous model of heavy metal spikes
to utilising canvas and rubber. Dassler persuaded U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to use his handmade spikes at the 1936 Summer Olympics. In 1949, following a breakdown in the relationship between the brothers, Adolf created Adidas, and Rudolf established Puma, which became Adidas’ business rival.
Adidas’ logo is three stripes, which is used on the company’s
clothing and shoe designs as a marketing aid. The branding, which Adidas
bought in 1952 from Finnish sports company Karhu Sports, became so successful that Dassler described Adidas as “The three stripes company”. The brand name is uncapitalized and is stylized with a lower case “a”.

History

Early days

Adidas was founded by Adolf “Adi” Dassler who made sports shoes in his mother’s scullery or laundry room in Herzogenaurach,
Germany after his return from World War I. In July 1924, his older
brother Rudolf joined the business, which became Dassler Brothers Shoe
Factory (Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik).
The electricity supply in Herzogenaurach was unreliable, so the
brothers sometimes had to use pedal power from a stationary bicycle to
run their equipment.

Dassler assisted in the development of spiked running shoes
(spikes) for multiple athletic events. To enhance the quality of spiked
athletic footwear, he transitioned from a previous model of heavy metal
spikes to utilising canvas and rubber. In 1936, Dassler persuaded U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to use his hand made spikes at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Following Owens’ four gold medals, the name and reputation of Dassler
shoes became known to the world’s sportsmen and their trainers. Business
was successful and the Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes
every year before World War II.
The Dolbury factory, used for production of anti-tank weapons
during the Second World War, was nearly destroyed in 1945 by US forces,
but was spared when Dassler’s wife convinced the GIs that the company
and its employees were only interested in manufacturing sports shoes.
American occupying forces subsequently became major buyers of the
Dassler brothers’ shoes.

Split and rivalry with Puma

The brothers split up in 1947 after relations between them had broken down, with Rudolf forming a new firm that he called Ruda – from Rudolf Dassler, later rebranded Puma, and Dassler forming a company formally registered as Adidas AG from Adi Dassler on 18 August 1949. Although it is a popular urban myth that the name is an acronym for All Day I Dream About Sports, that phrase is a “backronym”; the name is actually a portmanteau formed from “Adi” (a nickname for Adolf) and “Das” (from “Dassler”).

Puma SE
and Adidas entered into a fierce and bitter business rivalry after the
split. Indeed, the town of Herzogenaurach was divided on the issue,
leading to the nickname “the town of bent necks”—people looked down to
see which shoes strangers wore. Even the town’s two football clubs were divided: ASV Herzogenaurach club was supported by Adidas, while 1 FC Herzogenaurach endorsed Rudolf’s footwear.
When handymen were called to Rudolf’s home, they would deliberately
wear Adidas shoes. Rudolf would tell them to go to the basement and pick
out a pair of free Pumas.
The two brothers were never reconciled and although both are now buried
in the same cemetery, they are spaced as far apart as possible.
In 1948, the first football match after World War II, several members of the West German national football team wore Puma boots, including the scorer of West Germany’s first post-war goal, Herbert Burdenski. Four years later, at the 1952 Summer Olympics, 1500 metres runner Josy Barthel of Luxembourg won Puma’s first Olympic gold in Helsinki, Finland.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics, Puma paid German sprinter Armin Hary
to wear Pumas in the 100 meter sprint final. Hary had worn Adidas
before and asked Adolf for payment, but Adidas rejected this request.
The German won gold in Pumas, but then laced up Adidas for the medals
ceremony, to the shock of the two Dassler brothers. Hary hoped to cash
in from both, but Adi was so enraged he banned the Olympic champion.

3-Stripe logo

In 1952, following the 1952 Summer Olympics, Adidas acquired its signature 3-stripe logo from the Finnish athletic footwear brand Karhu Sports, for two bottles of whiskey and the equivalent of 1600 euros.

Tapie affair

After a period of trouble following the death of Adolf Dassler’s son Horst Dassler in 1987, the company was bought in 1989 by French industrialist Bernard Tapie, for ₣1.6 billion (now €243.9 million), which Tapie borrowed.[19] Tapie was at the time a famous specialist of rescuing bankrupt companies, an expertise on which he built his fortune.

Tapie decided to move production offshore to Asia. He also hired Madonna for promotion. He sent, from Christchurch,
New Zealand, a shoe sales representative to Germany and met Adolf
Dassler’s descendants (Amelia Randall Dassler and Bella Beck Dassler)
and was sent back with a few items to promote the company there.

In 1992, unable to pay the loan interest, Tapie mandated the Crédit Lyonnais bank to sell Adidas,[21] and the bank subsequently converted the outstanding debt owed into equity of the enterprise, which was unusual as per the prevalent French banking practice. The state-owned bank had tried to get Tapie out of dire financial straits as a personal favour to Tapie, it is reported, because Tapie was Minister of Urban Affairs (ministre de la Ville) in the French government at the time.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus, a friend of Bernard Tapie, became the new CEO of the company in 1994. He was also the president of Olympique de Marseille, a team Tapie had owned until 1993. Tapie filed for personal bankruptcy in 1994. He was the object of several lawsuits, notably related to match fixing at the football club. During 1997, he served 6 months of an 18-month prison sentence in La Santé
prison in Paris. In February 2000, Crédit Lyonnais sold Adidas to
Louis-Dreyfus for a much higher amount of money than what Tapie owed,
4.485 billion (€683.514 million) francs rather than 2.85 billion
(€434.479 million). They also purposely bankrupted Tapie’s company that
owned Adidas, because only the company had the right to sue them.

Post-Tapie era

In 1994, combined with FIFA Youth Group, SOS Children’s Villages became the main beneficiary.

In 1997, Adidas AG acquired the Salomon Group
who specialized in ski wear, and its official corporate name was
changed to Adidas-Salomon AG. With this acquisition Adidas also acquired
the Taylormade Golf co

mpany and Maxfli, which allowed them to compete with Nike Golf.

In 1998, Adidas sued the NCAA
over their rules limiting the size and number of commercial logos on
team uniforms and team clothing. Adidas withdrew the suit, and the two
groups established guidelines as to what three-stripe designs would be
considered uses of the Adidas trademark.

As CEO of Adidas, Louis-Dreyfus quadrupled revenue to 5.84 billion euros ($7.5 billion) from 1993 through 2000. In 2000, he announced he would resign the following year, due to illness.

In 2003, Adidas filed a lawsuit in a British court challenging
Fitness World Trading’s use of a two-stripe motif similar to Adidas’s three stripes. The court ruled that despite the simplicity of the mark, Fitness World ‘s use was infringing because the public could establish a link between that use and Adidas’s mark.

In September 2004, top English fashion designer Stella McCartney
launched a joint-venture line with Adidas, establishing a long-term
partnership with the corporation. This line is a sports performance
collection for women called “Adidas by Stella McCartney”, and it has been critically acclaimed.

Also, on 3 May 2005, Adidas told the public that they sold their partner company Salomon Group for €485m to Amer Sports of Finland.
In August 2005, Adidas declared its intention to buy Reebok for $3.8 billion (US$). This takeover was completed with partnership in January 2006
and meant that the company would have business sales closer to those of
Nike in North America. The acquisition of Reebok would also allow
Adidas to compete with Nike worldwide as the number two athletic
shoemaker in the world.

Adidas has global corporate headquarters in Germany, and many
other business locations around the world such as Portland OR, Hong
Kong, Toronto, Taiwan, England, Japan, Australia, and Spain.

In 2005, Adidas introduced the Adidas 1, the first ever production shoe to use a microprocessor.
Dubbed by the company “The World’s First Intelligent Shoe”, it features
a microprocessor capable of performing 5 million calculations per
second that automatically adjusts the shoe’s level of cushioning to suit
its environment. The shoe requires a small, user-replaceable battery
that lasts for approximately 100 hours of running. On 25 November 2005,
Adidas released a new version of the Adidas 1 with an increased range of
cushioning, allowing the shoe to become softer or firmer, and a new
motor with 153 percent more torque.

On 11 April 2006, Adidas announced an 11-year deal to become the official NBA clothing provider. The company has been making NBA, NBDL, and WNBA
jerseys and products as well as team-coloured versions of the
“Superstar” basketball shoe. This deal (worth over $400 million) took
over the previous Reebok deal that had been put in place in 2001 for 10
years.

In November 2011, Adidas announced that it would acquire outdoor
action sport performance brand Five Ten through a share purchase
agreement. The total purchase price was US$25 million in cash at
closing.

By the end of 2012, Adidas was reporting their highest revenues
ever and Chief Executive Herbert Hainer expressed optimism for the year
ahead.

In January 2015, Adidas launched the footwear industry’s first
reservation mobile app. The Adidas Confirmed app allows consumers to get
access to and reserve the brand’s limited edition sneakers by using geo
targeting technology.

On 24 March 2015, Adidas and McDonald’s unveiled the 2015
McDonald’s All-American uniforms. For the third year in a row, players
will be wearing short-sleeved jerseys, made with the same lightweight
and breathable material as the ones used in the NBA.
In August 2015, Adidas acquired fitness technology firm Runtastic for approximately $240 million.

Products

Apparel

Adidas sells a range of clothing items, varying from men’s and women’s t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, pants and leggings.
The first Adidas item of apparel was the Franz Beckenbauer tracksuit created in 1967. Adidas AG is the largest manufacturer of sports bras in Europe, and the second largest manufacturer in the world.

Sportswear

One of the main focuses of Adidas has always been football kits,
and the associated equipment. Adidas remains a major company in the
global supply of team kits for international association football teams
and clubs.

Adidas makes referee
kits that are used in international competition and by many countries
and leagues in the world. The company has been an innovator in the area
of footwear for the sport, with notable examples including the 1979
release of the Copa Mundial
moulded boot used for matches on firm dry pitches. It holds the
accolade of the best selling boot of all time. The soft-ground
equivalent was named World Cup and it too remains on the market.

Since 1970, FIFA, the world governing body of football, has commissioned specially designed footballs for use in its own World Cup tournaments. The Adidas Telstar was the first ball commissioned for the World Cup in 1970. The balls supplied for the 2006 World Cup, the “Teamgeist”,
were particularly noteworthy for their ability to travel further than
previous types when struck, leading to longer range goals. Goalkeepers
were generally believed to be less comfortable with the design of the
ball, claiming it was prone to move significantly and unpredictably in
flight. Adidas introduced the Jabulani for the 2010 World Cup. The ball was designed and developed by Loughborough University in conjunction with Bayern Munich. The Adidas Brazuca was the match ball of the 2014 World Cup, the first World Cup ball named by the fans.

Adidas is one of the official sponsors of the UEFA Champions League, and the Adidas Finale is the competition’s official match ball. Along with the aforementioned Adidas Predator boot, Adidas manufactures the adiPure range of football boots. Adidas named an official match ball of the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament the Adidas Beau Jeu which translates to “The Beautiful Game” in English. Adidas provides clothing and equipment for all teams in Major League Soccer.

Baseball

Adidas has also provided baseball equipment and sponsors numerous players of Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan.

Adidas Baseball hardgoods are licensed to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
From 1997 to 2008, Adidas sponsored New York Yankees.

Basketball

Adidas’ Superstar and Pro Model shoes, affectionately known as
“shelltoes” for their stylized hard rubber toe box, were fueled by,
among others, coaches such as UCLA’s John Wooden. Adidas drew about even with Converse in basketball by the mid 1970s before both started to fall behind then-upstart Nike in the early 1980s. Subsequently, Adidas Superstar became very popular in the 1980s hip hop streetwear scene alongside Adidas’s stripe-sided polyester suits.
From 2006 to 2017, Adidas was the outfitter of all 30 franchises in the National Basketball Association, replacing the Reebok
brand after Adidas’ acquisition of Reebok. Adidas was replaced by Nike
as the official outfitter of the league after the 2016–17 season.

Cricket

Adidas began manufacturing cricket footwear in the mid 1970s, with
their initial target market being Australia. Their shoes were a radical
departure from traditional leather cricket boots which had remained
basically unchanged for decades, being lighter and more flexible but
also offering less toe protection, so that it became not uncommon to see
batsmen who had been struck by the ball on the foot hopping around in
pain. Having continued to manufacture cricket footwear for many years,
in 2006 the company finally entered the field of bat manufacture in 2008
and currently their bat range includes the Pellara, Incurza, Libro and
M-Blaster models.

In the 1990s, Adidas signed the superstar Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar and made shoes for him.
From 2008 until his retirement, Adidas had sponsored the cricket bat
used by Tendulkar. It created a new bat, ‘Adidas MasterBlaster Elite’,
personalized for him.

In 2008, Adidas made a concerted move into English cricket market by sponsoring English batting star Kevin Pietersen after the cancellation of his lifetime deal with Woodworm, when they ran into financial difficulties. The following year they signed up fellow England player Ian Bell, Pakistan opening batsman Salman Butt and Indian Player Ravindra Jadeja.

In the Indian Premier League (IPL), Adidas sponsored the team Mumbai Indians from 2008 to 2014 and Delhi Daredevils from 2008 to 2013. They were the official sponsors of Pune Warriors India in 2011 and 2012, however the team was banned from IPL due to payment issues. In 2015 Season, Adidas sponsored Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Golf

Adidas Golf manufactures golf clothing, footwear, and
accessories. Men’s and women’s equipment includes footwear, shirts,
shorts, pants, outerwear (wind suits), base layer and eyewear.

Gymnastics

From 2000 to 2012, Adidas has provided men’s and women’s gymnastics wear for Team USA, through USA Gymnastics.
USA Gymnastics and Adidas sponsorship concluded at the end of 2012. In
2006, Adidas gymnastics leotards for women and Adidas men’s competition
shirts, gymnastics pants and gymnastics shorts have been available in
the United States, with seasonal leotards offered for Spring, Summer,
Fall and Holidays. Adidas previous collaborated with GK Elite, since
Spring 2013, Adidas gymnastics products have been available worldwide
through Elegant Sports. USA Olympic team members McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber, Jake Dalton and Danell Leyva are all sponsored by Adidas gymnastics.

Lacrosse

In 2007, Adidas announced its entering to the lacrosse
equipment, also sponsoring the Adidas National Lacrosse Classic in July
2008 for the top 600 high school underclassmen players in the United
States.
The company made their self into their own brand such as “Adidas
Lacrosse”, getting several scholarships, Bucknell (men and women),
Bryant (men), Delaware (men and women), New Jersey Institute of
Technology (men), and D3 powerhouse Lynchburg (men and women in fall of
2016 with soft good only)”. Materials that adidas provided were jerseys,
shorts, shoes, shafts, heads, gloves, and protective pieces.

Products manufactured for the sport are sticks, gloves, protective gear and boots.

Running

Adidas currently manufactures several running and lifestyle shoes, including the Energy-boost, and the spring-blade trainers.
The brand has built a strong runners’ network within big European
capitals, such as Paris’ “Boost Energy League”. In 2016 the 3rd season
launched. In Paris, the Boost Energy League gathers 11 teams
representing different districts of Paris.

Adidas launched two new color ways of the NMD R1 and one new color way of the NMD XR1 in September 2016.
adidas EQT is a style of sneakers from adidas. It originated in the
early 90s and relaunched in 2017. The latest adidas EQT line released in
a “Turo Red” Pack on January 26, 2017, and included models such as the
adidas EQT Support 93/17, EQT Support ADV, and EQT Support Ultra.
adidas.com is one of the few online retailers.

In November 2016, Adidas teased a sneaker made from ocean plastic. The shoe is created from a fabric called “Biosteel”.
The shoe is called the “Adidas Futurecraft Biofabric.” The material
used is 15% lighter than conventional silk fibers, and is 100%
biodegradable. The shoe only begin to dissolve when it is put in contact
with a high concentration of the digestion enzyme proteinase, which
occurs naturally. Once this happens, the shoes can decompose within 36
hours. The shoe was never released.

Skateboarding

Adidas Skateboarding produces shoes made specifically for
skateboarding, including the redesign of previous models for
skateboarding. The brand also releases signature models designed by team
riders.

Tennis

Adidas has been involved with tennis equipment since the mid 1960s
and has historically sponsored many top tennis players, beginning with
two of the most dominant male tennis players at the start of the
professional era in the late 1960s, Stan Smith and Ilie Nastase.
During the 1980s and 1990s, not only were they exclusive apparel and
footwear sponsors of world number one men’s tennis players Ivan Lendl and Stefan Edberg and ladies’ world number one Steffi Graf
but each player had their own, exclusive graphic styles designed for
their use during play, which were in turn marketed to the general
public. Ivan Lendl even spent the vast majority of his dominant career
playing with several different models of Adidas tennis racquets,
primarily using the legendary Adidas GTX-Pro and then later the Adidas
GTX Pro-T. The company recently introduced a new line of tennis racquets.
While the Feather is made for the “regular player”, and the Response
for the “club player”, Adidas targets the “tournament player” with the
12.2 oz Barricade tour model.

Kabaddi

Adidas entered Kabaddi
which is still a non-Olympic sport but highly popular in the Indian
subcontinent and Asian countries. In 2014, with the launch of Pro Kabaddi League a city based franchise league in India, kabaddi took the region with storm. In 2015, they tied up with Mumbai-based franchise U Mumba.

“The association of kabaddi with adidas is a clear
exemplification of the growth of the sport over the last two years,”
shared U Sports CEO, Supratik Sen.

Accessories

Adidas also designs and makes slide-style sandals, mobile accessories, watches, eyewear, bags, baseball caps, and socks. As well, Adidas has a branded range of male and female deodorants, perfumes, aftershave and lotions.

Adidas announced they would be launching a new $199 Fit Smart
wristband in mid-August 2014. The wristband will pair with Adidas’s
miCoach app, which acts as a personal trainer.

Adilette

Adilette was the first ever pair of sandals made by Adidas, originally developed in 1963.[1] Adidas claims that a group of athletes approached Adi Dassler requesting a shoe be made for the locker room.

To this day, the resulting sandals are a best-seller. Since the original navy blue and white Adilette
sandals were created nearly fifty years ago, more varieties have been
created in different colours (black, red, green, grey, orange, brown,
yellow, pink, golden, silver). Most recently, Adidas has introduced a
colour scheme that goes along with its Predator and adizero line; the
scheme is dubbed warning (orange) and purple. Usually, the three stripes
appear in the contrasting colour on the strap of the classic models.
The most common adilette livery is in navy blue or black, mixed with
white colours. Also the Woodilette and Trefoil models follow a similar
design but without stripes on the strap.

The model provides a contoured orthopedic rubber sole with synthetic upper, and was designed as an après-sport slide,
but the adilette were quickly used everywhere out of the sporting
world. Opting for a wide, over the foot strap rather than the design of flip flops,
the adilette sandals provide a fresh style and a different level of
comfort for the wearer. The strap is also glued to the sides of the
sandal, which directs tension to less stressful areas of the sandal,
which gives the sandals more durability.

Santiossage

The Santiossage is a uni-sex slide-style sandal. The sandal has the trademarked three stripes on a velcro strap toward the front of the shoe. Santiossage
comes in black, navy, or red. On the side of the shoe, toward the heel
on either side, the manufacturer’s name appears, as well as on a round
emblem in the actual heel of the foot-bed. Notably, there are tiny clear
massage nubs throughout the foot-bed for the purpose of massaging
after-sport footaches, although the sandals are worn casually among
non-athletes. Seen through these clear nubs are Adidas’ three stripes.

Adissage

Adissage is also a uni-sex slide-style
sandal. Available in black, navy, light blue, black with pink, and
other assorted colors, the sandal has the trademarked three stripes on a
velcro
strap toward the front of the shoe. On the side of the shoe, toward the
heel on either side, the manufacturers name appears, as well as on a
round emblem in the actual heel of the footbed. Like the Santiossage,
there are tiny black massage nubs throughout the foot-bed for the
purpose of massaging foot aches after sport, although popular as a
casual sandal amongst non-athletes as well.