Adidas is a brand which you can see in most households today, it has made a mark on how football shoes and trainers are made and the company has made great contributions to clothing, footballs (soccer balls) and footwear. In this how they all began we will be talking about Adidas.
Starting Out
Adidas was founded by Adolf Dassler who made sport shoes in his mother's laundry room in Herzogenaurach, Germany after returning from world war I. in July of 1924. After a while his brother Rudolf joined the business, creating the company " Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory ". As the electricity supply in Herzogenaurach was not to be trusted, the brothers sometimes had to use a stationary bike to power their equipment. They helped in the development of running spikes for various athletic events. To make better quality running spikes, the dasslers swapped out metal spikes for Rubber ones. A very well known event which boosted their company was in 1936, when Adolf persuaded Jesse Owens (U.S Olympic Sprinter) to use his hand made shoes at the 1936 Summer Olympics. Owens won four gold medal, boosting the reputation and name of the Dassler shoe. Business started to boom and they were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes every year before World War II. The factory which they had been making the shoes was converted to make anti-tank weapons during the Second World War, due to this it was nearly destroyed by American forces in 1945 but Adolf's wife convinced the GI's the company and employees were only interested in making sports shoes. After this the occupying forces became major buyers of their shoes.
Puma?
Relations broke down between the brothers, and Rudolf created his own company in 1947, Ruda, deriving from the first two letters of his name and surname, Rudolf Dassler. Which he later rebranded Puma. Adolf followed suit and changed the companies name to Adidas AG from the previous name Adi Dassler. Although people may have thought that Adidas was an acronym for All Day I Dream About Sports, this was just a myth, and it was like how Rudolf had done it. Adidas was derived from his name. Puma and Adidas began a fierce business rivalry after the split. The town did not know what to do with this issue, half the town was wearing Adidas and half wore Puma. There was even a divide in football clubs, ASV Herzogenaurach was supported by Adidas, while 1 FC Herzogenaurach supported Rudolf's shoes.
Moving On...
The famous three stripe logo was acquired from the footwear brand Karhu Sports, for the ridiculous price of two bottles of whiskey. After Adolf's son Horst Dassler dies in 1987, the company was bought by French industrialist Bernard Tapie, for 243 million euros (which he borrowed). Tapie moved production to Asia, he also used Madonna to promote the company. in 1992, he could not pay back the loan interest. Selling the company to Robert Louis-Dreyfus for almost 3 times what Tapie paid. Robert purposely bankrupted Tapie's company which owned Adidas, because they ha the right to sue them. In 1994, partnering up with FIFA youth, SOS Children's Villages became the companies main beneficiary. Adidas is now the number one company producing football footwear and is a very good company when it comes to footwear. Adidas has had a weird but great history, and I hope you enjoyed this HTAB.