The rivalry between Adidas and Puma will adapt in an American series

The rivalry between Adidas and Puma Sport brands, founded by two brothers in a small German city in Bavaria, will adapt to a television series thanks to family archives, producers announced on Sunday, May 18.

The series will bring to the screen one of the most fascinating family conflicts in business history between Adolf “Adi” Dassler, founder of Adidas, and Rudolf “Rudi”, who created Puma, his competitor, a few years later.

A fraternal conflict

The two brothers first administered jointly the Empire of the Adidas family before blurring during World War II. His animosity then divided the small city of Herzogenaurach, near Nuremberg, at the exit of the conflict.

The Dassler family validated the project, transported by Hollywood producer No Fat Ego. The screenwriter Mark Williams, author of the successful “Ozark” series in Netflix, was chosen to write the story, based on videos and family memories.

“Everyone knows the brands, but the story behind is something we really do not know,” the scriptwriter told AFP out of the Cannes Film Festival.

The behavior of the two brothers will be addressed during the war, a sensitive issue for the two groups that are now valued by billions of dollars. Adi and Rudi Dassler became members of the Nazi party in the 1930s, such as the majority of the commercial elite.

“A drama in succession”

Rudi fought and was arrested by allied forces upon his return to a defeat to Germany. “Adi stayed at home and tried to keep the business alive,” says Mark Williams.

The family factory had been seized as part of the war effort to become a ammunition factory.

The series promises to be a “succession drama”, an American series in a family to the head of a media group in the United States, said Mark Williams.

The Chief of No Fat Ego, Niels Juul, who produced the recent films of Martin Scorsese, said he was attracted to history after discovering the association between Adidas and the American black athlete Jesse Owens.

Jesse Owens, a quadruple gold medalist at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, with Adidas innovative cramp shoes, a camouflet camoufla for Adolf Hitler that hoped to use the Olympic Games to demonstrate white supremacy.