Suddenly, after one summer, pink jerseys are everywhere. It has become almost impossible to achieve, yet, paradoxically, on the back of thousands of fans crowding American stadiums, hanging out at market stalls in Buenos Aires and Bangkok, there is a fiery glow on almost every field where kids play soccer. Let’s gather for England.
That the jersey has, apparently overnight, become the hottest piece of sporting goods on the planet is a simple, capitalist equation: the result of the unique combination of one of the most recognizable and beloved athletes of his generation; A distinctive, exotic color; and the brutal efficiency of textile factories in Southeast Asia.
However, somehow, some people saw it coming. Tor Southard was in a better position than the others, but was still caught unawares. As Adidas’ senior director of football in North America, he had been receiving emails from colleagues for almost a year asking whether the company’s biggest star, Lionel Messi, would join Inter Miami, which is also an Adidas customer.
As far as he knew it was just a rumour. Like the rest of the planet, Southard only found out this was true on June 7, the day Messi announced his intention a rare interview With two Spanish news outlets.
For many, the immediate question was football. Six months after winning the World Cup with Argentina, Messi, the finest player of his generation and arguably the best player of all time, left Europe’s elite clubs and competitions to join a team that, by comparison, was among the worst. There was one. America’s top league, Major League Soccer?
For Southard and Adidas, it was a more pressing matter. Within days of Messi’s announcement, the company had received nearly 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for Miami’s soft, electric pink jerseys. This is a specific fabric and a specific shade: Pantone 1895 AD, “It’s not like it was white, and we had inventory we could reuse,” Southard said.
Even though they could not have anticipated what kind of phenomenon the jersey would become, and how many people would be eager to obtain it, Southard and his colleagues had some sense of what was about to happen.
Adidas was going to need more of that fabric. Too much.
‘No. 1 priority’
On the day Messi announced he would sign for Inter Miami, Adidas had a stockpile of Inter Miami jerseys in stores and storage facilities across the United States. This could not last. The shirts sold out so quickly that Southard said it felt like the inventory had simply “evaporated.”
Producing more and faster cloth was the first step. Although Adidas would not begin selling official Messi jerseys until his contract was formally signed on July 15, orders for the huge rolls of pink fabric needed to make them came within 24 hours of his interview on Spanish television in the first week of June. Given.
Of course, the risk was that the deal could still fall apart. “It’s a compromise made for speed,” Southard said.
Under normal circumstances, retailers order jerseys nine months in advance. Major sportswear brands such as Adidas and Nike generally prefer to produce large batches of team gear rather than manufacturing to meet demand, as fast fashion chains do.
Given the number of what the industry calls “chase buys” — a sudden influx of orders in unexpected quantities — for Messi’s Inter Miami jerseys, Adidas knew its usual playbook wouldn’t work.
He had learned this from experience. In 2021, when Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United, Fanatics, one of a handful of retailers working with Adidas, asked for one million more jerseys. A year later, after Messi helped Argentina win the World Cup, Adidas had to produce and ship an additional 400,000 Argentina national team shirts over a three-month period.
The pink jersey featuring Messi’s name and No. 10 immediately became Adidas’ “number one” when it hit the shelves, Southard said. 1 priority globally.
To streamline the process, the company sourced pink, recycled polyester fabric for the jerseys as much as possible from the factories in Southeast Asia that made them. Orders for other features such as logos and crests were expedited, sometimes leading to increased production of apparel for other Adidas teams. To cut down on shipping time, the first batches of Messi jerseys were shipped in small shipments as soon as they came off the production line.
The frantic production effort paid off. Initially, Adidas had asked its retailers to start selling the jerseys with a promise of delivery by October 15. But the first version arrived in the United States by July 18. They were sent straight to Miami, where demand was greatest.
They sold out almost immediately.
‘Everyone has hookups’
On a street corner in Miami’s affluent Brickell neighborhood one evening last month, two young men had set up a pop-up Messi store, their racks stocked with Inter Miami jerseys in pink and an alternate version – black with pink trim. Were, which the team wears. On th eway. This was a work of imaginative title messi miami shop,
The name sounds official. The online store also sees this. It sells two versions of the Messi jersey, as most sportswear manufacturers now do: a “Player Edition” made of high-quality materials and an athletic cut, and a “Replica” designed for fans whose bodies The jersey may not have the exact dimensions of elite athletes.
However, Messi Miami Shop is not affiliated with Messi, Inter Miami or Adidas in any way. (It is, however, a shop.) Its jerseys, which came from a contact in Thailand, were purchased for $10. “This is Miami,” one of the vendors said. “Everyone has a hookup.” And a markup: Stoll was selling the jerseys at $25 for the children’s version and up to $65 for the “authentic” inauthentic adult version of the team’s black jersey.
He said the sellers, who declined to be named for reasons that should be obvious, sold about 30 cars in a few hours. But they are not the only ones creating an uproar.
A few nights ago, outside Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida, a different group of hawkers were going about their business in Messi jerseys. Messi wasn’t playing that night – he missed several weeks of the season due to injury – but Inter Miami was in town, and plenty of fans were willing to pay $40 for a pink jersey with his name on it, even if it was stitched. Be substandard and was taken out of a bag.
Despite all efforts by Adidas to get their official Messi jerseys into stores as quickly as possible, the clamor for them – any version of them – has been so great that counterfeits have flooded the global market to make up for the shortage.
Although the company says it has now largely cleared the backlog of orders, it has found that it is still selling jerseys far faster than it is producing them, and not just in the United States.
In Buenos Aires, where Messi’s status as a national treasure was sealed by victory in the World Cup, pink jerseys were on sale in store after store and kiosk along Calle Florida, one of the Argentine capital’s bustling shopping streets. are available for. Stalls in the bustling San Telmo market. At some sellers, counterfeit products retail for around $50.
In Europe, where tribal ties with local clubs run deep, Miami jerseys have suddenly become common. At a training session for primary school children in Manchester, England, last month, the usual concentration of Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool gear was filled with half a dozen pink Inter Miami jerseys, each with Messi’s name on it.
It is difficult to overstate the scale of demand. Official sales have exceeded every benchmark Adidas could have imagined: more than the frenzy that followed David Beckham’s move to the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, Southard said; Beyond the hype generated by Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United in 2021; Beyond the noise of Messi’s Argentina shirt after Qatar 2022.
Inter Miami is now the best-selling Adidas soccer jersey in North America, ahead of all five of the famous European clubs that the brand traditionally considers the crown jewel of its portfolio: Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Arsenal.
Since July, Fanatics, which dominates sports apparel in the United States, has sold more Messi jerseys than any other football player and any athlete except Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. No player in any sport has sold as many jerseys on the site in the first 24 hours after changing teams as Messi did in July.
His cinematic arrival in MLS – with a late game-winning goal in his debut on July 22 – came too late to save Inter Miami’s season. The club will miss the playoffs, which begin on Wednesday. Messi will not play in pink again until next year.
But this did nothing to reduce his influence. His arrival brought record crowds to Inter Miami games. The team’s ticket prices have increased for next season. Adidas is confident it has enough quantities to produce the next edition of Messi’s jersey – due in February – to meet demand.
For many fans and retailers, this moment can’t come a moment too soon. The jersey has become so coveted, so rare, that even Beckham himself – one of the most famous footballers of his generation, a worldwide celebrity and part owner of Inter Miami, Messi’s boss – has found it difficult to obtain. One.
More than once, he wanted to send a pink Messi jersey as a gift to a friend or colleague, but was told he would have to wait like everyone else.
alan blinder And Patricia Mazzei Contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.
