New York Times claims that Lionel Messi’s pink No. 10 jersey is the “hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet.”
Adidas reported that it had received “almost 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for jerseys in Miami’s soft, electric pink” within a few days of Messi declaring his decision to join the team.
The business “placed orders for vast rolls of the pink fabric needed to make them within 24 hours of his interview on Spanish television in the first week of June,” however would “not start selling official Messi jerseys until his contract was formally signed on July 15.”
The demand for Adidas’s authentic Messi jerseys, “any version of them — has proved so great that counterfeits have flooded the global market to meet the shortfall,” despite Adidas’s best efforts to get them “into stores as quickly as possible.”
The business has “now largely caught up with the backlog of orders,” although it’s “still selling jerseys far faster than it can produce them, and not just in the United States.”
Sales, according to the company, “surpassed every benchmark Adidas could have imagined.” Inter Miami has become the “best-selling Adidas soccer jersey in North America, ahead of all five of the storied European clubs that the brand traditionally regards as the crown jewels” within its collection: Manchester United and Arsenal of the Premier League, Real Madrid of La Liga, Juventus of Serie A, and Bayern Munich of Bundesliga.
With the exception of the Eagles, Fanatics, which “dominates sports apparel” in the United States, has “sold more Messi jerseys than for any other soccer player, and any athlete at all”