Adidas takes 12-10 lead over Nike in World Cup shirt deals

NO IRANIANS WEAR NIKE

While team deals are important for sales of soccer jerseys, more critical for sales of boots is the sponsorship of top players, particularly the likes of Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, who wears Nike, and Argentina's Lionel Messi, in Adidas.

Nike expects 60 percent of all the players heading to Russia will be wearing its boots, including almost half the German and Spanish team and three-quarters of the Russians, even though they will be wearing Adidas shirts.

An exception is Iran, which faces new sanctions after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal. Nike says none of the country's players are wearing its shoes, while Adidas is providing the team's jerseys.

German brand Puma is a distant third, sponsoring just four relatively lowly teams in the competition, compared with the eight it kitted out in 2014, dented by the failure of its top team Italy to qualify.

Still, Puma Chief Executive Bjorn Gulden says the World Cup has helped its order book for the second and third quarters.

Adidas reported soccer-related sales of 2.1 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in 2014, when it sold 14 million official match balls and 8 million jerseys, including 3 million for the winning German team.

Sales rose to 2.5 billion euros by 2016, but slipped as a proportion of total Adidas revenue to 13.5 percent from 14.5 percent in 2014. It has not disclosed figures since then.

Nike saw soccer sales fall a currency-adjusted 4 percent to $2 billion for its fiscal year ended May 31, 2017, accounting for less than 6 percent of group revenue.

The World Cup could add about 3 to 4 percentage points to Adidas group revenue growth in 2018, lower than previous tournaments due to the fact it is happening in Russia, according to Piral Dadhania, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

However, Dadhania noted much of the benefit occurs before the event as the jerseys have already been sold to retailers.

"Any incremental boost during or after the event relating to jersey sales depends on the extent to which specific teams progress through the competition," Dadhania said.