Yeezy Over Jumpman – Really? What Does this mean for Everyone?

I’m not the person to write about the obvious because if you scroll through your Instagram feed this week i’m sure you can’t miss the news.  First off, its great to see Adidas make such stunning news by overtaking Jordan brand as the #2 footwear in the US, but lets step back and review this statement a bit.  Why are we separating Nike and Jordan as 2 distinct entities but at the same time we are categorizing the entire branch of Adidas into 1? Moreover, if we wanted true comparison, why not Jordan brand vs. Adidas Yeezy distinctly?  Or better yet, can we compare Jordan vs. Adidas Basketball cause at the very least I think that makes a better comparison.  Anyways, I’m not Matt Powell…but maybe you can ask him…

Regardless, let’s just assume the data is true and validated by industry “experts”…what next?  I’m trying to be as un-biased as possible because for the sake of this blog, I shouldn’t really choose sides.  Let’s start from a re-seller perspective.  If you’ve been making money off flipping Adidas, that’s great because you’ve successfully tapped into a hot market at the right time.  If you were able to flip Adidas Yeezy’s, that’s even better as I’m sure you made quite some profit over the last 2 years. Though when it comes to Adidas, I can really only think of 2 shoes that could make sustainable re-sell profit margin.  One is the obvious Adidas Yeezy’s and second are the Pharrell Human Series. Pretty much all the non-artist associated boost are not in the question.  However, if you are re-seller that are stocking vast amounts of Adidas as inventory, I’d be extremely cautious because who knows when this trend will end?  After all, in my opinion Adidas shoes are tailored towards fashion more than athletic use and that is the exact reason why once this fashion trend comes and goes, who’s going to continue to buy?  From my experience, I see tons of people wearing Jordan’s to play basketball, but I see way more people wearing them outside of basketball off the court.  For Adidas Yeezy’s, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone running or doing sports in them…that’s why I consider them a fashion trend that probably will soon die out.

From a collector standpoint, how prices move in the future shouldn’t really matter to you because fans should not care about the worth of the item.  But as a sneakerhead speaking from experience one day in life you’ll eventually grow out of shoes and move on with different hobbies and wants in life and that often means selling the stuff you don’t want towards something you newly desire.  From my experience, Jordan brand has a LONNNGG history on the secondary market and generally speaking all the Jordan shoes generally hold value better than any shoe on the market…even better than Nike.   On the other hand Adidas is relatively non-existent in the secondary market until the last 2 years and given its short history, its really hard to say for certain how well Adidas will do in the near future.  Compared to Jordan brand, this trend i’ve seen come and go a few times and pretty much if history was to repeat itself, we’ll be seeing Jordan brand come back strong.

Lastly, from a footwear company standpoint,  I honestly think its great Adidas has done what it has done in pushing Nike in the past 2 years.  What is competition? Before this Adidas hype, Nike didn’t really face much competition and as a result they probably felt they didn’t really need to create or innovate to stay ahead.  Now with some increased competition, I think this actually pushes Nike and Jordan to be more creative and innovate again to recapture the market.  Let’s face it, with competition the beneficiaries are actually us the consumer because now we actually get to see bigger and better products that probably wouldn’t exist if Adidas didn’t happen. Case in point, do you really think a Nike Kaws Jordan 4 or Nike Off-white collab would have happened if it weren’t for Adidas? Who knows…maybe they had this planned along, but i’m more a believer of the prior rather than the latter.  What do you think?