Is Drake ditching Nike?

This is certainly a big deal if it̵7;s true, but he won’t be the first big name to just do it and leave the swoosh brand.

Kanye West ditched Nike after releasing the Yeezy 1 and Yeezy 2, with the last Nike Yeezy dropping in 2014. He inked a deal and officially brought Yeezys to Adidas in 2015. Ever since he made the move, both he and the three stripes brand have made immense profit.

In just 2 short years, Kanye released over 5 different Adidas Yeezy Models in many different colors, including the Yeezy 750, 350, Wave Runner, with more upcoming models to come like the 500 and 550.

Although some of the shoes remain controversial, and some think that Yeezy brand along with its resale is dying, he is clearly making money with more products than ever and even more to come.

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According to recent rumors, it’s looking like Drake might do the same and switch over to Adidas.

One of the most legitimate signs of proof comes from Nick DePaula, the creative director of Nicekicks.com, who tweeted a confirmation of these rumors that

“Drake and his team are (already) far along in negotiations with Adidas on a comprehensive endorsement deal”

Drake adidas 2018 rumors confirmed.
Drake adidas 2018 rumors confirmed. https://twitter.com/NickDePaula

 

Aubrey Drake Graham’s OVO Jordans have been some of the most sought after kicks, with initial releases of the OVO Air Jordan 10 holding values in the thousands of dollars.

He had a good 5 year run with Nike, but he is apparently leaving them for the same reasons that Kanye West left them: they’re limiting his creative range, according to sources from Solecollector.

Drake’s first Nike shoe, the OVO Jordan, came out in 2013. In the 5 years following, we have only seen re-releases of old models with just the Air Jordan 8, 10, and 12 models decorated with OVO colors.

Black and white and gold have been the primary colors of the OVO brand and have a classic look and because of this will likely retain value over time.

If Nike OVO’s are no longer produced, this may raise the resale value of the Drake Jordans, which is good news for people who already own pairs that they’re holding on to.

StockX is an excellent site for seeing statistics like this and you may find a trend that if Drizzy does ditch Nike that the prices of past releases will go up.

We have seen so many different shoe models and colors from Kanye West’s Adidas Yeezys, which proves that Adidas does in fact allow for a much broader expression of creative range than the “Just Do It” brand, who released the same number of Yeezys in a whole year as Kanye did in one month.

Adidas recently had a huge win that attributed to this rumored move: 

In 2017, Adidas became larger than Jordan for the first time. Many people were surprised by this, but if you analyze the brands, you will see that this takeover makes sense.

Influencer marketing has real power, and Adidas has managed to leverage this well with some of the best names in the business.

Celebrity partnerships with the likes of Pharrell, Pusha T and Kanye West certainly contributed in a large way to their takeover.

The addition of Drake to the team will make them much more powerful. Nike seems to be fighting back by rolling out partnerships with celebrities like Justin Timberlake this year, but will it be enough to fight the brand that celebrities apparently favor?

A lot of fans are already excited and are enthusiastically welcoming the supposed upcoming partnership with the decorated Toronto rapper’s OVO brand with Adidas.

Hypebeast posted a mockup from graphic artist @mikadololo of a Drake OVO version of the hit NMD Human Race, and the reactions of fans confirmed that such a collaboration would command tons of attention and resale value:

adidas x OVO drake nmd
A look at what adidas x OVO drake NMD might look like. From @hypebeast on Instagram

Nike is a brand that is constantly innovating, with new shoes like the Air Max 270, the Epic React Flyknit, and the Hyperadapt 1.0 coming out regularly and selling very well in many different colors. It will definitely remain a cutting edge brand but some may argue that even though it’s branching out and capturing new markets, its value may be diluted because of this.

The Jordan portion of the brand still remains one of its most important points of focus, and with its market share falling further compared to Adidas, should Nike be worried about the fact that celebrities like Drake are continuing to ditch their brand to join sides with their #1 competition?

Time will tell. Although no official announcement has been made directly from adidas or anyone related to the brand, it’s looking like this collaboration between Drake and Adidas is inevitable.

This is huge news for both sneaker fans and sneaker resellers alike. Adidas will continue to grow as a brand, possibly threatening Nike as we laid out in this article.

For now, we wait in eager anticipation to see what a partnership with Drake and Adidas might bring. If it happens in 2018, this will be an amazing year to buy and sell sneakers as either a flipper or a collector or both.

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JVG

JV was inspired to start Six Figure Sneakerhead after having more people asking questions than he could answer about sneaker reselling when they saw the success he was having. His intention is to create the top resource for sneaker resale education worldwide and loves to see when customers succeed, and he's always accepting feedback for all offerings which are constantly updated to suit the customer needs and the current times.

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