As the 2022 FIFA World Cup draws to a close, another match, Adidas VS Nike, is taking place in customers’ shopping carts. The brands are competing to win customers over and maximize their sales during the quadrennial event.
Nike is never too far from where Adidas is during a World Cup cycle, and the opposite is also true. The two brands are rival businesses with different ideas. Yet on this, football’s biggest sales battlefield, they share the same space and compete for the same territory.
As the World’s Cups main sponsor, does Adidas have mileage over Nike?
Adidas would appear to have an advantage being the event’s primary sponsor, but data from Refinitiv shows that Nike is competing favorably in the product pitch. A lot of the equipment used in the competition including the game balls bears the Adidas label. It appears that this exposure is helping the brand since Adidas earnings are predicted to increase by 61.4% this quarter. Nike, on the other hand, sold out 23% of its World Cup products in the United States within two weeks, compared to Adidas at 11%. Since the World Cup began, Nike has had a far greater sell-out rate than Adidas.
Both businesses’ have almost similar size selections. Although not all of the 15 soccer teams are participating in the World Cup, Nike has 397 products from those teams listed on the National Teams area of its American website. On the other hand, Adidas has 380 items from 14 competing nations listed in the FIFA World Cup category.
England, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal are the top teams whose goods are in high demand in the United States. Only one of them, France, is still in the competition, which has been reduced to two finalists: Argentina, and France.
For its shirts and jerseys, which are the main merchandise for the games, Nike has a higher average price point than Adidas, at $71 vs $46. Due to the success of the World Cup, neither of the companies has had to significantly reduce its prices. However, Adidas has been giving a larger average discount of 9% in order to prevent inventory obsolescence. Adidas’ FIFA lineup included 27% reduced items at the time of Refinitiv’s investigation, but Nike’s clothing wasn’t marked down at all.
Nike is likely to win the World Cup sales match
Jharonne Martis, Director of Consumer Research at Refinitiv, said that compared to Adidas, Nike is selling out World Cup apparel faster and at a higher price in the U.S. Nike’s stock has also done well, indicating that it may be on the verge of scoring the decisive retail goal.
