Obviously they were a multibillion dollar company before Ye and will be long after.
UA makes billions too but they have zero relevancy in this industry. Before Ye that was where adidas resides. In our industry, other than soccer you could not give adidas away before him. Basketball they were an absolute pariah. Lifestyle? Non existent. This whole game runs from the feet up and nobody was rocking Adidas shoes hard before him. You make ground on the shoes and all of your lines begin to flourish cause the rest of the gear has to match brands or you are tacky.
From a decade of personal experience trying to sell their stuff, It was looked at as a second tier alternative to Nike and folks were willing to fork out that extra dollar for product that was largely the same other than the swoosh. It’s still Nikes world and we all just live in it but the Yeezy was the most important point to bring them back to relevancy. That’s why Nike went and got his son Travis, and linked up with Virgil, and started doing all these other creative collabs that Ye pushed for. For once they were losing the cool war. The battle of cool in this industry is bigger and more important than dollars and cents. IMO damn near whatever he asks for they should give it to him.