After adidas cut ties with Ye (Kanye West) following his antisemitic remarks and abuse hurled towards adidas employees, the company has decided to resume selling their remaining YEEZY stock with a portion of the proceeds heading to charities supporting those offended groups. 

There is currently $1.3 billion USD worth of YEEZY stock currently sitting in storage and to settle the company’s profit loss and to keep from having sustainability issues on their hands, adidas has decided to sell them. It is unclear how much of the product will be sold or how it will be released. 

Under the terms of Ye’s current contract, he will still receive a 15% commission for every sale. To counter that, adidas will donate a portion of sales to charity, but there is no word as to the percentage that will be given. 

“What we are trying to do now over time is to sell some of this merchandise,” said adidas CEO, Bjørn Gulden (via Hypebeast). “Burning the goods would not be a solution.” 

The company did consider donating all the sneakers but thought that it would lead to the product reaching the market in a volatile way. 

In November 2022, adidas CFO, Harm Ohlmeyer, said that the company has total ownership of all aspects of YEEZY shoes, save the name. There were plans to introduce new versions of the sneakers, which they intend to do sometime during 2023. However, adidas was concerned about what to do with current YEEZY stock.

“Going forward, we will leverage the existing inventory with the exact plans being developed as we speak,” said Ohlmeyer. “It should refrain from relaunching items under its own brand, as they will always be synonymous with West, and this would likely result in muted customer demand.

“Adidas is the sole owner of all design rights registered to existing products. We intend to make use of these rights as early as 2023. We own all the versions and new colourways. It’s our IP. We are working through all the options.” 

It seems these options are beginning to make themselves clear.