Adidas and Beyoncé to end clothing line deal, reports say

Grammy-award winning singer Beyoncé and sportswear company Adidas are ending their roughly four-year-old clothing and shoe line partnership early, according to reports.

The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the split, attributed the mutual decision to creative differences over the clothing line, known as Ivy Park. Sales also have been lackluster, the Wall Street Journal reported. After selling $93 million worth of Ivy Park Merchandise in 2021, sales last year fell to $40 million, well below the company's $250 million projected sales, the newspaper reported.

The Adidas-Beyoncé partnership was set to end this year, the Journal reported. Representatives for Adidas and Beyoncé didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Beyoncé — whose full name is Beyoncé Knowles-Carter — launched Ivy Park in 2016 and began her partnership with Adidas three years later. The German brand offers colorful athletic wear and shoes including cargo pants, hoodies and shorts. In a 2016 interview with Elle magazine, Beyoncé said the name of the line combines her daughter's first name, Ivy Blue, and Parkwood, the neighborhood in Houston where she grew up. 

Yeezy shoes hard to fill 

Ivy Park went on sale at Adidas stores in January 2020, with items selling between $25 and $250. Beyoncé maintains exclusive rights and control over the brand now that the parties have split, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Last year, Adidas also ended its Yeezy brand clothing partnership with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West over his antisemitic remarks. Adidas said last month it expects to lose $1.3 billion in sales this year because of the split. Analysts at Wedbush Securities said in a research note that Adidas in March is sitting on about $433.5 million worth of Yeezy merchandise because "selling the product does not seem to be worth the reputational risk."

The Beyoncé breakup won't impact Adidas' bottom line to that same degree "because Ivy Park has never been a material revenue driver," said David Schwartz, an analyst for Morningstar Research.

"The main takeaway from this situation is that it highlights Adidas' inability to find a celebrity partnership that is anything close to the relevance of Yeezy," Swartz told CBS MoneyWatch on Tuesday. "At this point, it's hard to see how Adidas can produce anything to replace Yeezy in the celebrity/fashion/collector category."

Adidas stock price remained flat Tuesday afternoon, trading at roughly $141 a share.