Do you remember how hard it was to get the special-edition Nike Mercurial Vapor boots Nike released to celebrate Cristiano Ronaldo's 2013 Ballon d'Or title? This was not because the demand for the boots was much higher but because the boot was much more limited.
Picture by boot collector @toffem
The Nike Mercurial CR7 2013 Ballon d'Or boots were limited to just 100 pairs worldwide. The 2014 edition was limited to 333 pairs, the 2016 version was already available 777 times, while the 2017 version was limited to 1,000 pairs globally.
The latest Nike Mercurial Ballon'Or soccer cleat, dubbed the Nike Mercurial Golden Touch and given to Modric for his first Ballon d'Or title, is limited to 3,000 pairs in total - 1,500 pairs of the Superfly and 1,500 pairs of the Vapor version.
Meanwhile, Adidas so far did not release any Lionel Messi Ballon d'Or boot for public - the Adidas Messi 15 Platinum Edition to celebrate his fifth Ballon d'Or title and all previous editions were exclusive to Lionel Messi.
What do you think of Nike making the Ballon d'or boots less limited each time? Let us know in the comments below.