Under Armour, Inc.

Date founded: 1996

Industry: Sports apparel, footwear

Corporate Headquarters: Baltimore, Maryland

Type: Public

Overview

Under Armour, Inc. is a multi-billion-dollar sports-apparel company that was ranked in the top five most valuable sports-business brands worldwide in 2012. The company was founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a former college football player who wanted to create a more comfortable athletic shirt that would absorb sweat. Plank started his business from his grandmother’s basement and, through unique product placement deals and endorsement strategies, soon transformed Under Armour into a multi-million-dollar company. The business continued to grow throughout the early twenty-first century, adding footwear, casual wear, and other athletic gear to its product line. In 2010, the company’s revenue topped $1 billion for the first time and by 2012, Under Armour’s worldwide sales were more than $5.8 billion.

History

Kevin Plank was born in Maryland and grew up playing football in high school. In the early 1990s, he enrolled at the University of Maryland and made the school’s football team as a walk-on. Practicing in Maryland’s warm, humid weather made for very sweaty conditions, and Plank and his teammates often had to change shirts many times during the course of a day. He was also annoyed by how regular T-shirts seemed to bunch up under such conditions. However, he noticed how his compression shorts did not get as drenched in sweat as his cotton T-shirts. Compression garments are more tight-fitting and are typically made from synthetic material with more elastic properties.

Plank graduated from Maryland with a degree in business administration in 1996. That same year, he set out to create sports apparel that would be more comfortable and less sweaty for athletes to wear. He researched fabrics and chose a form-fitting synthetic material that was used to make women’s undergarments. He came up with a prototype shirt he called the “shorty,” which was able to better absorb moisture and regulate body heat. The garment’s tighter fit also helped to support athletes’ muscles. Plank founded Under Armour with his own savings and began operations from his grandmother’s basement in Washington, DC. He had originally wanted to call the company “Body Armor,” but his words were misinterpreted during discussions as “Under Armor,” and the name stuck. Plank decided to use the British spelling of “armour” because it was the only way he could get the name in the company’s toll-free telephone number.

Plank sent samples of his prototype shirt to several National Football League (NFL) players. As word got around the league about the shirt, other players began to purchase shirts for themselves. Under Armour struck a deal to sell its athletic gear to Georgia Tech and North Carolina State universities. In 1997, the company expanded its product line to include all-season wear and gear that kept athletes warm in cold weather. A year later, Under Armour forged a deal with NFL Europe, a developmental league associated with the NFL. That same year, Plank moved out of his grandmother’s basement and into a new company headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

The company’s fortunes skyrocketed in 1999 when it signed a deal with Warner Bros. for Under Armour products to appear in the Oliver Stone film Any Given Sunday. The gear also appeared in the 2000 film The Replacements and the television series Playmakers and Friday Night Lights. In 2000, the company gained further exposure when it took out an ad in ESPN The Magazine. By 2001, Under Armour had signed deals with Major League Baseball, USA Baseball, and the National Hockey League to be an official sportswear supplier for those organizations. Two years later, Under Armour debuted its first national advertising campaign, which featured former NFL player and Maryland football star Eric Ogbogu. The ad’s slogan, “We must protect this house,” became extremely popular and helped significantly raise the company’s brand profile.

Under Armour launched a line of women’s sportswear in 2003 and became a publicly traded company in 2005. Its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange almost doubled on its first day of trading. The company continued to expand its product lines to include performance sportswear, casual wear, footwear, sports gear, and fitness apps. Its distinctive logo, featuring rounded curves resembling an interlocked U and A, grew into one of the most well-known brand symbols in sports. Under Armour became a billion-dollar brand in 2010 and signed endorsement deals with numerous major sports leagues and top athletes. Among the most notable were professional golfer Jordan Spieth, NBA superstar Stephen Curry, and five-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady.

Impact

Under Armour opened its first retail store in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007, and by 2023, the company had more than one hundred sixty-three outlets worldwide. Under Armour employed more than 17,500 people and did business in more than 150 countries. The company’s headquarters remained located in Baltimore, but corporate offices were also located in forty-one other cities around the world. As of 2019, the company was in the process of constructing a new 4-million-square-foot (371,600-square-meter) corporate headquarters near Baltimore. Work began on the project in 2022.

Plank, who owns a 16 percent share in Under Armour stock, had a 2023 net worth of $1.1 billion. According to Forbes magazine, Under Armour’s brand was valued at $3.5 billion in 2019, making it the fifth most valuable sports brand in the world. The ranking included non-apparel companies such as cable sports network ESPN and British sports television network Sky Sports.

In the athletic apparel market, Under Armour generated about $5.8 billion in net sales in 2022. That figure placed it fourth behind Nike, Puma, and Adidas. Nike was far and away the industry leader in 2012 with net sales of $46.7 billion. Most of Under Armour’s sales came from the United States. Its apparel line was responsible for about 67 percent of total sales. .

Bibliography

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