Horst Dassler founded Arena, a swimwear company, and became chairman of Adidas, and at the time of his death it was the world's largest sporting goods manufacturer with affiliates in 40 nations.

[4] Horst himself was known as the father of sports sponsorship as a result of his separate business of managing rights for the world governing bodies of football and the Olympics.

Dassler joined his father's firm in 1960 and founded an Adidas affiliate in Alsace that later became the dominant sporting goods manufacturer in France.

Dassler continued to sign athletes to sponsorship deals and by the 1976 Montreal Olympics the "Arena Elite Team" included Mark Spitz, Novella Calligaris, Steve Furniss, David Wilkie, Shirley Babashoff, Gary Hall Sr., Klaus Dibiasi, Ulrika Knape and Maxine “Miki” King.

[7] On assuming control, Dassler was immediately faced with the challenge of increasing competition for sports shoeware: Nike, Inc. was eroding Adidas's market share in the United States and Japan, and Puma SE, a company founded by Dassler's uncle after a dispute with his father, had increased its sales of athletic footwear by 35% the previous year.

The two approached newly elected FIFA President João Havelange, who believed that the soccer body was not maximizing revenues.

[11] According to British sports journalists Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings, Dassler and ISL were largely responsible for turning the Olympics into a hugely successful revenue-generating enterprise.