Adi Dassler's Adidas: Jesse Owens' Spikes and Stripes for Two Whiskeys

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Adolf "Adi" Dassler began making sports shoes in his mother's scullery in Herzogenaurach, Germany, after World War I, scavenging tent canvas and rubber. His older brother Rudolf joined in 1924 to form the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory, where a stationary bicycle powered the leather mill when electricity failed. Adi swapped heavy leather and metal spikes for light canvas and thin rubber, and at the 1936 Berlin Olympics he talked his way into the athletes' village to give Jesse Owens a pair. Owens won four gold medals, and sales grew to 200,000 pairs a year. Both brothers joined the Nazi party in 1933, the factory made Panzerschreck anti-tank weapons from 1943, and at least nine forced laborers worked at the company's sites.

In 1945 Adi's wife persuaded U.S. troops not to blow up the factory, and American GIs soon became customers. The brothers split in 1947, and in 1949 Adi registered Adidas while Rudolf founded the company that became Puma, dividing the town down to its bakeries and football clubs. Adi refused to pay sprinter Armin Hary, who won the 1960 Olympic 100 meters in Pumas, then switched to Adidas for the podium; Adi banned him. Adi bought the three stripes, originally midfoot support straps, from the Finnish firm Karhu Sports in 1952. The brothers never reconciled and are buried at opposite ends of the town cemetery.

• Herzogenaurach was nicknamed the town of bent necks because locals checked strangers' shoes before talking to them.
• Handymen wore Adidas to jobs at Rudolf's house so he would send them to his basement for free Pumas.
• The episode notes that Adidas does not stand for "All Day I Dream About Sports"; it joins Adi and Das.
• The brothers' 1970 World Cup pact to leave Pelé alone broke when Pelé stopped to tie his Puma boots before a quarterfinal kickoff.
• Karhu's three stripes cost the equivalent of 1,600 euros and two bottles of whiskey.