Football: A deal that helps Adidas and the DFL

In the canon of Cologne songs, Trude Herr’s “Niemals man so Ganz” is undoubtedly high on the emotional scale; the farewell song is a hit at funerals. Mourning work was also necessary at Adidas after the sporting goods manufacturer from Herzogenaurach, Franconia, learned that it would lose the German Football Association (DFB) as a partner. The upcoming World Cup will be the last in which the German national players will appear in Adidas jerseys, shorts and socks. From January 1st, US rival Nike will equip all DFB teams, for which it will pay the association up to 100 million euros per year in money and goods, about twice as much as Adidas previously paid. However, this also applies to Adidas: You never go all the way.

When the deal became known two years ago, those responsible seemed irritated and taken by surprise for a while. But then they quickly acted pragmatically and professionally, in order to send a conscious signal: that Adidas will not be gone from German football as an institution even after January 1st – beyond its role as a supplier, for example at FC Bayern. The Three Stripes Group will become a strategic partner of the German Football League (DFL), in which the clubs of the first and second Bundesliga are brought together. Specifically, this means that Adidas is granting the professional association a loan of 100 million euros, broken down to a maximum of 20 million euros per year and bearing interest of 1.5 percent. However, the DFL only has to pay back 60 million euros, because part of the agreement is that Adidas will supply the match ball for these two professional leagues from the coming season until at least 2034. That is valued at around five million euros per season.

The cooperation, i.e. the money, is intended to help the DFL “secure the future and competitiveness of German professional football,” said its managing director Marc Lenz. Specifically, investments are to be made in international central marketing and digitalization. For Adidas, the deal has the advantage that the brand remains firmly and widely visible in German professional football even after the loss of the national team. With the charm that Bundesliga games take place weekly, national team games only every few months and tournaments every two years. Adidas boss Björn Gulden mentioned this in passing when he presented the business figures for the first three months to business journalists on Wednesday. This means that the visibility of the brand could even become greater beyond all symbolism.

From a purely business perspective, Adidas is doing pretty well right now. The second largest sporting goods manufacturer after Nike sold shoes, textiles and accessories for 6.6 billion euros from January to March, a sales increase of seven percent. The operating result climbed by almost 100 million to 700 million euros. Overall, Adidas wants to increase its business this year by two billion euros to around 26.8 billion euros in sales and end with an operating profit of 2.3 billion. Adidas owes much of the fact that business went well in the first quarter to the sale of football products. Measured against the first three months of 2025, the corresponding sales increased by almost half.

Adidas and German football – that was also something emotional

That has a lot to do with the upcoming World Cup. Adidas equips 14 teams there and therefore the most teams – apart from Germany, including defending champions Argentina and Spain. Nike has twelve teams, Puma, the German number two supplier, has eleven teams under contract. Many fans have already stocked up on the new national jerseys in advance. Sales also take place during the tournament, but mainly by the participants who go far in the competition. Ideally, Adidas can expect to sell well over a million of the national jerseys of its top teams, at upwards of 100 euros each. Overall, Adidas is now the market leader in football again, said Gulden on Wednesday. This position had been lost to Nike for a few years.

Anyone who knows the Adidas history knows about the close ties that existed back in the days of company founder Adi Dassler, not only with players like Franz Beckenbauer, but also with the DFB and association officials. Today’s compliance standards were not always applied. Adidas and German football – that was also something emotional, as angry reactions from fans and politicians to the switch to Nike two years ago showed. However, the agreement with the DFL that has now been concluded and has reportedly been prepared for over 20 months follows a strictly economic logic. With the 100 million loan, including an eight-year ball monopoly, Adidas is filling a gap that opened up when the majority of professional clubs rejected the entry of investors from the financial industry into the foreign marketing of the Bundesliga in 2023 and 2024 out of fear of fan protests, even though this would have been a billion-dollar deal in total.

Without this capital, there would be no means to expand the Bundesliga as a brand, especially abroad, and to promote its marketing. Unlike what would have been the case if the financial investors got involved, not a cent from the Adidas loan flows into the clubs’ coffers. The money remains entirely with the DFL and should be invested accordingly. In doing so, Adidas not only secured interest and the match ball, but also, among other things, the right to supply the trophy for the “Man of the Match”, which has been awarded after every Bundesliga game since this season. The three-stripe brand will also benefit indirectly if it succeeds in extending the food chain. If the DFL expands its foreign marketing, clubs that Adidas supplies will become better known abroad, which in turn will boost sales of fan jerseys there. Above all, those of the German flagship club FC Bayern, as is well known, an Adidas club.

For the DFL, the lending business with francs is probably the most important component in filling the investment gap that is left by the rejection of financial investors in foreign marketing. The other two are a cooperation concluded in 2024 with the Relevent Sports Group, which is intended to help make the Bundesliga better known and more visible in North and South America. Income is to be generated from this as well as from the cooperation with the online portal Onefootball, through which football fans in some selected countries can stream Bundesliga games for a fee.