Could Kanye have a billion dollar deal with Adidas?

Since Kanye started working with Adidas back in late 2013 he has had an abundance of success. Kanye has always wanted to spread his creative through his fashion and Adidas has allowed him to do just that. When working with Nike Kanye was limited to only working with sneakers. Now that Kanye is signed with adidas he has released four distinct shoe silhouettes and has had 3 seasons of his clothing line and Adidas + KANYE are just getting started. The next advancement to Adidas +Kanye is to open Yeezy stores consisting of Yeezy clothing and new Yeezy performance gear.

According to a source from TMZ, the deal is indeed worth 10 figures, but when you compare it to Lebron’s numbers, the deal doesn’t make sense to be that high. With adidas, Kanye has essentially three distinct shoe silhouettes (the 350, 550 and 750 BOOST), and his 950 BOOST boot. On top of that, the 550 Boost hasn’t even released yet. Conversely, LeBron has had three complete signature lines since he signed with Nike in 2003, with all of them operating at the same time for the past six years: the Signature line, the Zoom Soldier Line and the Ambassador line, all with at least eight models, not counting take-down lifestyle models from his signature shoes. In total, LeBron has 31 models for Nike to work with right now compared to ‘Ye’s four. Hurting Kanye’s case even further is the fact that even though Kanye has said that everyone that wants Yeezy’s will get them, not a single pair has been a General release, and more often than not, the only real winners of pairs are Resellers. So what, besides ego, justifies giving Kanye a billion dollar deal for the line?

Quite simply, is that he brings something to the table LeBron can’t, or more or less hasn’t thus far.

It’s no secret that Nike Basketball’s signature lines have lost out on their dominant one, two, three spot in the sales race thanks to Stephen Curry’s Under Armour line (another spurned Nike signee). In the Lifestyle field, Nike is losing to adidas’ runners, with the YEEZY BOOST line spearheading the charge. Because of the hype Kanye gravitates, some analysts are claiming that it has also caused some of the hype to seep into the rest of adidas’ line.

Camilo Lyon, analyst with Canaccord Genuity, says this is not by accident. “I would say adidas has been brilliant in drafting off of the [Yeezy] success: you can see it in the Tubular and NMD, there’s a halo effect created,” he said. “It’s created a buzz around adidas that it hasn’t had in a very long time.”

Also, many forget that Kanye co-designed all of his models, dating back to his Nike days. Because of this, adidas athletes like James Harden and Carlos Correa have expressed interest in having Kanye create design products for their sportswear models. Slapping a co-designer credit from Kanye onto a Baseball or Basketball shoe could revitalize adidas’ market in the sportswear department, something it hasn’t been on top in since the 1980s.

Skeptics however, offer a trend that doesn’t bode well for adidas if it did give West that billion dollar deal. Musical artists simply don’t offer longtime value in the footwear department. Whilst the Run DMC deal the three stripes did in the 80s still has some hand in selling Superstars (and helped sell out a RUN DMC branded Superstar a few years back), other lines, such as Reebok’s S. Dot and G-unit started off great, then fell flat. With the basketball market, proven success in re-releases and retros provides Nike with a justifiable reason to give LeBron a billion dollar deal.

Paul Swinand, analyst at investment research firm Morningstar, said he couldn’t guess what the deal would be worth to the rapper, but is in the opinion that it is a lot less than people realize. “Adidas has stubbed their toe so many times on this," he said. If you look at Justin Bieber (who was a superstar musical artist in his own right and the face of adidas NEO brand), they were gushing over him just a few years ago.” The partnership with Bieber and Adidas only lasted two years.

Still, you can’t discount the fact that, no matter what brand Kanye goes to, his footwear sells out with relative ease. But the question still remains, is Kanye worth a billion dollar deal? And, did adidas give it to him? I guess only time will tell on this matter.