{"id":50988,"date":"2026-07-08T19:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/50988\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:03:07","slug":"adidas-vs-nike-whos-winning-the-world-cup-sales-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/50988\/","title":{"rendered":"Adidas vs. Nike: Who’s Winning the World Cup Sales Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs the high-stakes World Cup<\/a> enters the home stretch, Nike<\/a> is dominating on the marketing front, but it appears Adidas<\/a> is in the lead when it comes to sales \u2014\u00a0at least so far. <\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to M Science research analyst Drake MacFarlane, Nike<\/a>, Adidas<\/a> and Puma<\/a> appear to be benefiting from the World Cup<\/a>, although Adidas year-over-year growth appears to \u201cwell outpace\u201d its two competitors.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcFarlane explained in an interview that M Science works with data providers tracking trends across direct-to-consumer and wholesale through credit and debit card transactions, as well as bank account, all on an anonymized basis.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said Adidas sales have increased in the past several weeks during the World Cup, and much of those sales are apparel<\/a> in the form of soccer jerseys. And \u201cNike putting some effort into global football is helpful for apparel<\/a>, but I am a bit skeptical [on whether] that fundamentally fixes the dynamic,\u201d the M Science analyst said. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Adidas, while data indicates that apparel growth is outpacing shoes during the World Cup period, shoes will return to the forefront once it\u2019s over. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Nike, which has a much more robust apparel mix than Adidas, the \u201cfirst few weeks of [June] appear positive in our U.S. e-receipt data, with apparel growth more than offsetting mixed trends within Nike footwear<\/a>,\u201d MacFarlane said, while also noting that the benefit from the World Cup for the brand \u201cappears localized to the U.S.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe added that despite Nike\u2019s overall apparel business dwarfing that of both Adidas and Puma<\/a>, \u201cwe see Adidas comprising the greatest share among national team jerseys.\u201d With team soccer jerseys as the core driver, the Adidas share averaged 58 percent over the first three weeks of June, ahead of Nike at 36 percent and Puma at 6 percent, according to MacFarlane. Moreover, European e-receipt data suggests that Adidas also saw sales growth in recent weeks in Europe.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf the three top athletic brands, Puma is the smallest of the three. \u201cSimilar to Nike, the apparent benefit to Puma from the World Cup appears driven principally by our U.S. data, while in our European e-receipt data, the benefit is less pronounced,\u201d the M Science analyst said. <\/p>\n

\n\tStore checks are reflecting similar gains for Adidas and, to some extent, Nike, when compared to their competitors. Telsey Advisory Group (TAG) found that between Adidas and Nike, the former had a more extensive World Cup assortment mix \u201cwhen including balls, footwear and accessories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOverall, while we believe Adidas has capitalized the most on World Cup merchandise sales-to-date, Nike\u2019s products is also selling well,\u201d noted TAG analyst Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez, adding that Nike has sold 2.5 times more kits thus far versus the same time at the 2022 World Cup and that the teams that it is outfitting are gaining momentum in competition.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Adidas Fifth Avenue flagship store puts the World Cup experience front and center \u2014 with national team jerseys, sneakers and slides for footwear, balls and accessories for men, women and kids. Most items were sold at full price, according to TAG, while the second floor featured a display of running footwear. Keys items included the Adizero EVO SL running show, the AE 2 basketball shoe and the Lamine Yamal F50 soccer cleat.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Nike store on Manhattan\u2019s Fifth Avenue also features World Cup kits and classic Nike product lines, such as Vomero, Pegasus and ACG. Fern\u00e1ndez said World Cup jerseys were front and center when entering the store, and that the custom World Cup jersey section on the first floor was the busiest part of the store. The TAG analyst noted that there was a good assortment of performance gear and an array of shoes including Vomero and Pegasus bestsellers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe TAG analyst also found limited promotions at Adidas and Nike, with slightly higher levels at Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods and Foot Locker.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Dick\u2019s in the Westchester Mall in N.Y. and in Petaluma County, Calif., traffic was good and conversion high with several customers checking out, the TAG analyst said. World Cup inventory was light versus a visit a few weeks earlier, indicating good sell through, she said, noting that the N.Y. store was celebrating N.Y. Knick\u2019s NBA championship win. <\/p>\n

\t\tSoccer Sales After the World Cup \t<\/p>\n

\n\tM Science\u2019s MacFarlane said he\u2019s not optimistic about Nike\u2019s plan to upgrade its three soccer boot silos<\/a> \u2014 Mercurial, Tiempo and Phantom \u2014 over a 12-month window.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are able to track that data. Historically, Mercurial hasn\u2019t been a very large component of the business, and quite frankly, given the majority of consumers are relatively lifestyle, I don\u2019t think [buying a soccer cleat] fundamentally changes the narrative for Nike,\u201d MacFarlane concluded. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Adidas, the brand over the last two to three years saw \u201ctheir Terrace product suite, the Sambas, Gazelles and Spezials of the world\u201d as the primary drivers of footwear. And while those sales had reached their peak and \u201chave been rationalizing over the past year or so, what we have seen, however, is that they\u2019re starting to pick up again, particularly for the Samba.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat I\u2019ve been impressed by is that they\u2019ve been able to kind of be at the leading edge of footwear trends here,\u201d he said, adding that while Adidas has benefited from the Samba, the brand is already \u201cevolving towards what that next big thing is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the high-stakes World Cup enters the home stretch, Nike is dominating on the marketing front, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21254],"tags":[21290,41077,21777,25920,26792,284],"class_list":["post-50988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adidas","tag-adidas","tag-apparel","tag-footwear","tag-nike","tag-puma","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}