What Does the End of Yeezy Mean for the Sneakerverse?

In 2018, a paper from Moritz Lutz and Peter Bug of Reutlingen University in Germany found that Nike, Air Jordan and Adidas accounted for 98 percent of the total sneaker resale market revenue globally. And when it comes to the Adidas share, Mr. Ljustina of Project Blitz said, most of that is Yeezys.

But according to Gerome Sapp, the chief executive of Rares, the fractional investment corporation that bought the Yeezy prototype in 2021 for $1.8 million — and that had intended to allow its investors’ to cash out through the now-canceled sale at Christie’s — when it comes to the Yeezys made with Adidas, there is a “fundamental difference between the Jordan brand and the Yeezy brand, which is the Yeezy brand is not about scarcity.”

For the most part, people buy Yeezys to wear, he said. They buy Jordans to store and collect.

“There are only three or four types of Yeezys you would buy to hold on to,” Mr. Sapp said, name-checking the Air Yeezy 2 SP Red Octobers, the last shoe Ye made with Nike, as a prime example. Mr. Ljustina also said that a majority of Yeezys sold for much less than Jordans — for prices closer to their original retail price — in part because there are so many more of them in circulation. (He also said that what resellers lose in profit on each shoe they offset in volume.)

That’s important because it explains why Ye’s recent remarks may have a negative effect on the resale market. If you buy a shoe to wear, and that shoe becomes associated with a toxic viewpoint, it could connect you with those ideas by association, in the way wearing a MAGA hat may imply a political view. One Florida man, Danny Shiff, went viral for burning $15,000 of Yeezys he owned and posting the video on TikTok in reaction to Ye’s statements. (He said he would auction off his remaining Yeezys and donate the proceeds to charities working to fight antisemitism and racism.)

And yet, said Mr. Ljustina, Yeezys are very popular among international buyers in Russia, the Middle East and China, who may not care so much about what Ye said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/style/adidas-yeezy-nike-sneaker-market.html