Unsold Yeezys rack up orders as Adidas pivots from $2 billion-a-year partnership

The first batch of Yeezy shoes released since Adidas severed its partnership with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been a win for the company, racking up around $565 million in sales, the Financial Times reported.

Ye, as West is currently known, first partnered with Adidas in 2015, with Yeezys generating an estimated $2 billion per year, equivalent to about 10 percent of Adidas’ annual revenue.

But Adidas severed ties with Ye in October after he made a series of anti-Semitic remarks, including a tweet threatening to “death fight 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and comments made in an unaired portion of a Fox News interview that promoted several anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

However, consumers are now apparently content to focus on the shoe itself, the FT reports, with recent acquisitions of the company̵[ads1]7;s unsold inventory so popular that Adidas was flooded with orders.

Online sales of around 4 million pairs of sneakers “exceeded the company’s most optimistic forecast”, meaning Adidas could not meet the strong demand for orders, according to the Financial Times.

The influx of orders has reduced the risk that Adidas would have endured a sharp write-down on unsold Yeezy inventory, possibly undermining the company’s concerns that Ye’s spate of anti-Semitic comments last year would make the Yeezy brand “too toxic” in the eyes of consumers, the paper said.

Adidas was quick to distance itself from Ye’s comments last year.

“Yes’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate our company values ​​of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” the company said in an October statement that has since been removed from its website.