It's all about who's wearing what

No Nike for Iran

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 players heading to Russia will be wearing its boots, including almost half the German and Spanish teams and three-quarters of the Russian squad, even though they will be wearing Adidas shirts.

An exception is Iran, which faces new sanctions after US President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal.

Nike says none of Iran'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 said the World Cup has helped its order book for the second and third quarters.

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

Sales rose to $3 billion 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 four percent to $2 billion for its fiscal year ended May 31, 2017, accounting for less than six percent of group revenue.

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

However, Dadhania noted much of the benefit occurs before the event.

"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.

Reuters