Twitter thread reveals Pele's role in rise of sports brands Puma and Adidas

Brazilian football legend Pele, also known as The King, breathed his last on Thursday night at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo due to multiple organ failures. The footballer had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The disease eventually emerged to be the actual cause behind his death. The tragic news has shattered the world of sports marking it a massive unassailable loss. While the planet is paying tribute to the three-time World Cup champion, sports journalist Joe Pompliano revealed an interesting story. He shared a long thread on Twitter explaining how Pele turned out to be the breakthrough for multi-billion-dollar companies of sports accessories - Adidas and Puma.

The story takes us back to the year 1924 when the Dassler brothers from Germany - Adolf and Rudolf started a shoe business in their mother’s laundry room. They named the startup Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory, the only manufacturer of athletic shoes in the country at that time. They witnessed a huge surge in sales after “Adolf invented screw-in spikes.”

In the mean of promotion, they approached sprinter Jesse Owens to sport the newly-designed shoes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The speedster came out to be phenomenal in the event winning as many as four track-and-field gold medals, a record that was left unbroken for another 48 years. Owens’ monumental success unquestionably boosted the sales of the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

With the company starting to grow, the relationship between the two brothers turned bitter. In 1943, Adolf pulled off a controversy resulting in the arrest of Rudolf by American soldiers. He was accused of “being a Waffen SS member — the military branch of the Nazi Party.” Rudolf got furious after coming to know that his own brother was responsible for this, making the conflict more bitter.

They parted their ways in 1948 and set up separate outlets on opposite sides of the town. While Adolf’s company got the name “Adi-das” combining the first and last name of the new owner, Rudolf followed a similar pattern but finally decided upon “Puma.” Following the separation, the two brothers ended up being the major rival of each other in the shoe market.

Both companies were doing good but all changed in the late 1960s. “Why? Pele, the world’s most famous athlete,” Pompliano noted in one of his tweets. Since the Brazilian footballer became a big name and had already won two World Cups, a war transpired between Adolf and Rudolf about which company would sign him as their ambassador. They finally came to a solution by signing a peace treaty named the “Pele pact” - a deal “not” to sign the player.

However, ahead of the 1970 World Cup quarter-final between Brazil and Peru, Puma made a lucrative offer of $120,000 to Pele. As stated by Pompliano, “Puma requested Pele walk to midfield seconds before kick-off and ask the official for time to tie his shoes. To ensure they got a close-up, Puma even paid the cameraman.” The telecast made it all clear that “Pele was a Puma athlete.” A clip of the occurrence has also been attached to the post.

Pele went on to lift the prestigious World Cup trophy for the third time in 1970. Thus, Puma recorded a record annual sale and garnered worldwide popularity. As Rudolf broke the “Pele pact”, Adolf and Adidas were no doubt annoyed, leading to a more solid “sneaker war” between the two businesses.

Pompliano referred to another interesting tale in the end. He wrote, “Today, 50 years after Puma secretly signed Pelé, the citizens of their hometown, Herzogenaurach, take brand loyalty to new levels. Shopkeepers favour one brand and refuse to serve customers wearing the other, regardless of the circumstances. As they say, people don’t forget.” In recent times, Adidas and Puma are the leading sponsors of major sports teams around the world. While Puma holds the sponsorship of European giants like Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan, Adidas has joined hands with Arsenal, Manchester United, FC Bayern Munich and Juventus.