Adidas, Nike share price at World Cup

As 32 teams battle for the World Cup in Qatar, Adidas and Nike hope their shares can score a goal.

With FIFA projected at least 5 billion viewers, the world's highest profile soccer event is a major opportunity for sports apparel makers to market their products and products with teams and individual players.

The 6% loss of Adidas shares during the month-long 2018 World Cup was caused by heavily favored Germany, an Adidas team, knocked out early and the FIFA tournament won by France, a Nike team. Nike gained 4% during the same period, beating the S&P 500's 1% gain.

In its quarterly conference call on November 9, Adidas said it expects to have sales of around 400 euros $415 million related to the World Cup, which would amount to about 2% of additional annual revenue.

Nike didn't respond immediately to a request for comment about the importance of the World Cup on its sales.

While soccer related merchandise accounts for a fraction of both Adidas and Nike's overall businesses, the hype around the World Cup and team jerseys can be a halo effect on sales of other types of merchandise, according to Wedbush analyst Tom Nikic.

If someone in Germany buys a World Cup jersey, do they also buy a new pair of shoes? Or if an Adidas sponsored team wins the World Cup, do people buy more jerseys than they would have otherwise? That's where you can see some variability, Nikic said.

Nike provides jerseys for 13 teams in this year's Cup, including Brazil, France and the United States, overtaking Adidas as the leader in World Cup jerseys. Seven teams are outfitted with Adidas jerseys, including the soccer powerhouses Germany, Spain and Argentina.

Six countries are playing in Puma jerseys, with New Balance and other companies making up the rest.

Four days into the World Cup, Nike teams have 15 points, while Adidas-clad teams have 11 points.

The shares of Nike have climbed over 1% during the tournament, while Adidas and Puma are each down more than 3%.

The odds favors Nike teams Brazil and France as most likely to win the 2022 Cup.