Matthew Shaer wrote about Adidas’ efforts to overthrow Nike’s dominant market position:

• Sneakers have gone from being casual footwear to several hundred-dollar fashion statements worn to weddings and Church.
• Nike has dominated. It has 62% of the market – compared with Adidas’ 5%.
• In fact, just one line of Nike’s shoes, the Jordans, has 20 times more market share than Adidas’ entire basketball selection.
• The domination is driven by an $8 billion endorsement budget that has led to the company sponsoring pretty much every major sports star in the United States.
• Adidas is trying to make a comeback. It can’t match Nike’s endorsement budget but instead of signing the biggest athletes it’s looking to sign younger, edgier athletes, who are blurring the lines between sportspeople and fashion models.
• It is doing so in part by giving shoe designers more freedom. Kanye West recently moved his line of shoes from Nike to Adidas due to his concerns about creative freedom.
• The 9,000 Kanye West shoes that went onto debut under Adidas retailed for $350…and were being resold for up to $5,000.

Read more about Adidas’ efforts to poach Nike’s employees, the executives at Adidas that are leading the charge, and what Nike thinks about all of this here.

Source: GQ