Recent revelations in the controversy regarding sports shoe and apparel maker Adidas’s (ADDYY) relationship with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, continue.
Now a new discovery about Ye’s Wyoming ranch has come to light.
The German company had said it was cutting ties with Ye on Oct. 25, following a number of instances he was heard and recorded making antisemitic remarks.
Adidas and Ye’s footwear and apparel collaboration, Yeezy, which debuted in 2015, will end immediately due to the rapper’s hateful words and deeds, Adidas announced in a statement on Tuesday. The statement further stated that the company would stop producing all Adidas Yeezy products and would stop paying Ye.
Due in part to Adidas’s potential decision to remove Yeezy products from shelves in physical stores and online, which would result in lost revenue from potential sales, the costs could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Accordin to statement from executives; “Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” the company and executives said at the time. Then Adidas immediately closed its partnership with Ye, ceasing production of Yeezy products and ending its financial obligations to Ye and his companies.
Adidas had been criticized for taking too long to take action regarding Ye, but eventually joined Gap, JPMorgan and Balenciaga in cutting ties with him over his contentious comments.
Omar Saad, a foreign business analyst, an analyst with Evercore International Strategy & Investment, estimates that the Yeezy line generates between $1 billion and $2 billion in annual sales for Adidas. According to Bloomberg, the Swiss investment bank UBS estimated the value of Yeezy at between $3.2 billion and $4.7 billion in 2021.
When it made the announcement on Tuesday, Adidas put a price on the decision to end its partnership with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West – up to $246 million in profits this year