As the high-stakes World Cup enters the home stretch, Nike is dominating on the marketing front, but it appears Adidas is in the lead when it comes to sales — at least so far.

According to M Science research analyst Drake MacFarlane, Nike, Adidas and Puma appear to be benefiting from the World Cup, although Adidas year-over-year growth appears to “well outpace” its two competitors.

McFarlane explained in an interview that M Science works with data providers tracking trends across direct-to-consumer and wholesale through credit and debit card transactions, as well as bank account, all on an anonymized basis.

He said Adidas sales have increased in the past several weeks during the World Cup, and much of those sales are apparel in the form of soccer jerseys. And “Nike putting some effort into global football is helpful for apparel, but I am a bit skeptical [on whether] that fundamentally fixes the footwear dynamic,” the M Science analyst said.

As for Adidas, while data indicates that apparel growth is outpacing shoes during the World Cup period, shoes will return to the forefront once it’s over.

As for Nike, which has a much more robust apparel mix than Adidas, the “first few weeks of [June] appear positive in our U.S. e-receipt data, with apparel growth more than offsetting mixed trends within Nike footwear,” MacFarlane said, while also noting that the benefit from the World Cup for the brand “appears localized to the U.S.”

He added that despite Nike’s overall apparel business dwarfing that of both Adidas and Puma, “we see Adidas comprising the greatest share among national team jerseys.” With team soccer jerseys as the core driver, the Adidas share averaged 58 percent over the first three weeks of June, ahead of Nike at 36 percent and Puma at 6 percent, according to MacFarlane. Moreover, European e-receipt data suggests that Adidas also saw sales growth in recent weeks in Europe.

Of the three top athletic brands, Puma is the smallest of the three. “Similar to Nike, the apparent benefit to Puma from the World Cup appears driven principally by our U.S. data, while in our European e-receipt data, the benefit is less pronounced,” the M Science analyst said.

Store checks are reflecting similar gains for Adidas and, to some extent, Nike, when compared to their competitors. Telsey Advisory Group (TAG) found that between Adidas and Nike, the former had a more extensive World Cup assortment mix “when including balls, footwear and accessories.”

“Overall, while we believe Adidas has capitalized the most on World Cup merchandise sales-to-date, Nike’s products is also selling well,” noted TAG analyst Cristina Fernández, adding that Nike has sold 2.5 times more kits thus far versus the same time at the 2022 World Cup and that the teams that it is outfitting are gaining momentum in competition.

The Adidas Fifth Avenue flagship store puts the World Cup experience front and center — with national team jerseys, sneakers and slides for footwear, balls and accessories for men, women and kids. Most items were sold at full price, according to TAG, while the second floor featured a display of running footwear. Keys items included the Adizero EVO SL running show, the AE 2 basketball shoe and the Lamine Yamal F50 soccer cleat.

The Nike store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue also features World Cup kits and classic Nike product lines, such as Vomero, Pegasus and ACG. Fernández said World Cup jerseys were front and center when entering the store, and that the custom World Cup jersey section on the first floor was the busiest part of the store. The TAG analyst noted that there was a good assortment of performance gear and an array of shoes including Vomero and Pegasus bestsellers.

The TAG analyst also found limited promotions at Adidas and Nike, with slightly higher levels at Dick’s Sporting Goods and Foot Locker.

At Dick’s in the Westchester Mall in N.Y. and in Petaluma County, Calif., traffic was good and conversion high with several customers checking out, the TAG analyst said. World Cup inventory was light versus a visit a few weeks earlier, indicating good sell through, she said, noting that the N.Y. store was celebrating N.Y. Knick’s NBA championship win.

Soccer Sales After the World Cup

M Science’s MacFarlane said he’s not optimistic about Nike’s plan to upgrade its three soccer boot silos — Mercurial, Tiempo and Phantom — over a 12-month window.

“We are able to track that data. Historically, Mercurial hasn’t been a very large component of the business, and quite frankly, given the majority of consumers are relatively lifestyle, I don’t think [buying a soccer cleat] fundamentally changes the narrative for Nike,” MacFarlane concluded.

As for Adidas, the brand over the last two to three years saw “their Terrace product suite, the Sambas, Gazelles and Spezials of the world” as the primary drivers of footwear. And while those sales had reached their peak and “have been rationalizing over the past year or so, what we have seen, however, is that they’re starting to pick up again, particularly for the Samba.”

“What I’ve been impressed by is that they’ve been able to kind of be at the leading edge of footwear trends here,” he said, adding that while Adidas has benefited from the Samba, the brand is already “evolving towards what that next big thing is.”