Puma the German sportswear brand was created by Rudolf Dassler in 1948 after he and his brother Adolf fell out and split from their successful sports apparel and footwear business.  Adolf went on to form the adidas brand (a name derived from his own 'Adolf Dassler') while Rudolf formed Puma, now a multinational billion dollar company and the third largest sportswear manufacturer in the world (behind Nike and adidas).

historically Puma is best known for manufacturing football boots and has sponsored some of the world's finest players including Pele, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Enzo Francescoli and Lothar Matthaus.  Several members of the West German national football team wore Puma boots in 1948 during the first football match after World War II and in the 1970 fifa world cup finals Pele famously justified his $120,000 deal with Puma when he stalled the start of a match by kneeling down to tie his laces and give the world a close up of his Puma boots in the process.  More recently Puma sponsored the 2006 World Cup winning team Italy.

In the United States Puma is best-known for the suede basketball shoe introduced in 1968, which eventually bore the name of the New York Knicks basketball star Walt 'Clyde' Frazier  In Australia Puma is best known as the official supplier of a number of clubs within the Australian rules Football League (AFL) and Puma are also the primary supplier worldwide of race suits and footwear for both Formula One and Nascar.

the sponsorship of sports stars has been a major factor in the marketing of Puma and goes back as early as the 1952 Helsinki Olympics when, Puma sponsored, Luxembourg athlete Josef Barthel who won gold in the mens 1500m.  During the 1960 Rome olympics Puma agreed a deal with the German sprinter Armin Hary to wear Puma in the 100m final even though the athlete had worn adidas in the qualifying rounds.  Hary won the 100m gold medal in Puma but then swapped back to his adidas footwear for the medals ceremony in the hope that both brands would pay him sponsorship. 

the ownership of Puma left the Dassler family in 1989 when Rudolf's two sons sold their stake to Swiss company 'Cosa Liebermann SA'.  Today the French retail company 'Pinault Printemps Redoute' own the majority of Puma shares.

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