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Adidas announced yesterday that its board had decided to sell all of its golf businesses including TaylorMade, Adams and Ashworth to focus efforts and resources on the footwear and apparel business.
The decision is not a major surprise to many as the brand has seen tremendous growth in the sneakers and apparel business of the Adidas and Reebok brands, while TaylorMade posted a 28% decline in sales for 2014.
As reported by ESPN‘s Sports Business Insider Darren Rovell, the golf business hasn’t seen a full recovery since 2008 due to many factors not limited to the economic downturn that hurt many sports businesses across the board. Too many new products introduced to the market, marginal growth of the sport, and customers conditioned to discounted prices also played a major factor.
The news of the announcement to sell the golf brands has been well received by many insiders in the sportswear business.
“As Adidas continues to excel with strong growth in the footwear and apparel spaces for Adidas, Adidas Originals and Reebok, it was a wise decision by the board to free up capital and resources to hyper-focus on what is a booming business rather than one on a decline.” told exclusively to Nice Kicks by a hedge-fund manager who wished to remain anonymous for the report.
While Adidas is teeing-up TaylorMade for sale, the brand is not getting out of the golf business entirely, but rather just producing footwear and apparel for the sport and getting out of the hard-goods business.
