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Cam Ward Under Armour Deal

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Rellyrell said:
My man, b4 UA can think about overtaking Nike, they must first catch Lululemon, Adidas, Puma, & Columbia my guy. Yeah, that’s how far off UA has fallen.

Under Armour made several fatal mistakes:

1. Jumped too far in the deep end of the ocean w/ Curry. UA made their name off of sports performance apparel (mind u, I have one of their original breathable undershirts that’s still in great shape today). They changed materials, & got into the footwear industry too quickly w/o consumer testing

2. That led to poor designs & poor performance shoes which hurt UA’s reputation

3. When they got into the sponsorship market in college, they were writing bad checks, assuming their forecast would remain on an incline. Unfortunately, they took another reputation hit by reneging off deal after deal

4. Curry shoes were hot for a quick second, but as mentioned in #2, his designs became memes, which hurt his branding & it never recovered

5. Players started complaining openly about cleats breaking on them & it became a global issue

6. Poor leadership due to **** poor financial reporting led to instability, creating a historic loss in evaluation.

Unfortunately, UA may be the story of Reebok, Fila, And1, DaDa & other sportswear companies that took or pushed for the #1 spot, but miscalculation after miscalculation created irreparable perception damage in which they never recovered. Plank is trying to rediscover the magic, so he’s throwing some Hail Marries. He has arguably the #1 WR in the game under fold, & now he has the presumptive #1 pick.

We’ll see if they can recover, but in my professional opinion I highly doubt it. In fact, most of their athletes have left after their initial contract. Curry has definitely changed the game, but he’s now getting flack for how the game is played. Also, unfortunately, his popularity is dwindling no fault of his own. Having a guy like D Fox carry on his brand is cool, but D Fox plays w Wemby now, & Wemby is 5x more popular than Fox, so Fox’s shoes r forgotten due to marketing/exposure.

So we’ll see if UA can turn it around, but it’s bleak.
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#6 is the #1 reason. #6 is also a direct result of everything else.

It should be worded “Poor leadership caused their **** poor financial situation and led to instability, creating a historic loss in evaluation.”

Too many companies fail to properly identify and hire true talented leaders and workers. Even if they do hire those individuals, they fail to give them the weight and decision making capabilities to create and execute any sort of vision other than “create marketing fluff” leading to burnout.

Ultimately, it’s a company of know-nothing MBAs and nepotism hires captaining the ship blindly to the iceberg because their egos and fat paychecks take precedence over everything else. Even if the iceberg doesn’t sink the ship, it will often leave it floundering and stagnant until everyone abandons it.
 
AtlAtty said:
Anyone who knows about Jordan going to Nike, or about Kobe, knows how poorly Adidas is run.

Adidas would have had both simply by trying. Losing out on Jordan maybe the single biggest ***** up in apparel history.
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Apologies in advance for my lengthy reply:

As much grief I give as I give Adidas, I will give them a slight reprieve on the MJ saga. Lol

Adi or Adolf had passed away roughly 7 yrs prior. Adidas have always had internal issues, hence y his brother started Puma. After Adolf’s death there were internal issues, especially after a key cog in creating turmoil between Adolf & his brother Rudolf, his wife Käthe, was aging. The direction of the company was all over the place.

It also didn’t help that MJ came in to a NBA era where it was inside-out, meaning the C’s were the stars (Kareem, Sampson, Parrish, M. Malone, etc). It was frowned upon to build ur team around a guard (& I’ve always wondered if J West had a hand in this b/c of his failures in the Finals). Regardless, it was unheard of at this point.

However, the fact that MJ was willing to take slightly less from them compared to Nike & they refused is the biggest blunder in apparel history.

Now; there’s something else I want to address w Adidas’ history:

The Dassler’s were 100% ****. Both themselves & Hugo Boss were the biggest contributors to The **** Party, w/ Hugo Boss trying to recreate the party after its dissemblance in 1945. One story that’s taken a life of its own is the Dassler’s having Jessie Owens wear their track shoes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Well, let me share y they did:

The Dasslers were primarily into sports, involved w/ Hitler’s youth camps; however, their main factory was also used to make bazookas for the German army. When the Berlin Olympics started, The Dasslers were looking to make an impression to further promote their spikes. Sure they were already involved w/ German athletes, but the Olympics were going to be in front of the most powerful man in Germany.

Understand at this time, African-Americans were looked at as less-than/inferior during this era, especially by Hitler who felt blonde hair & blue eyes was the epitome of superiority. So the Dasslers had a marketing plan to explode their product…they begged Owens to wear their spikes. This wasn’t altruistic, but rather a way to show if someone like Owens could dominate in their spikes, anyone can. Here’s the thing; Owens could’ve worn any shoe & dominated b/c then though he’s a Suckeye, he was that good; but, to see a Black man dominate in front of Das Chancellor in German-made shoes would propel their business globally.

It worked as Owens dominated & the results led to business booming for the Dasslers. So Owens was a muse to grow the business; in fact, when the U.S army came to shut down the plant, Adi’s wife convinced them that it was a humble shoe factory, the factory that made Owen’s spikes. This led to the U.S troops to not only leaving the factory up (for the time being), but buying all their supplies in support.

That’s the real story; Adi said Rudi was the real **** supporter, & he was just an innocent bystander looking to grow the biz, while Rudi said Adi’s ambitions led him to align w Hitler b4 trying to rebrand his purpose after the war.

Now why did I give that little history lesson? B/c Adidas’ philosophy has remained the same. They were all in on Cam when Cam was the favorite to win The Heisman (The He1sman), b/c it would’ve helped their brand. Once Hunter became the favorite, they quickly switched b/c Ward no longer valuable to them. Broke my heart to see it, but I sounded the alarm when I peeped it.

When Kobe left Adidas, he hated their vision. He hated it to the point he paid $8m to get out of his contract w them. Tracy McGrady signed a life time contract w Adidas & got out of it recently, now rocking Nike. Adidas will always look for the next if they can’t use u for their gain; that’s literally been their modus operandi since their inception. They’ll give u all the flowers & roses, roll out the red carpet, until u’re no longer a value to them (go ask Trae Young, too).
 
Rellyrell said:
My man, b4 UA can think about overtaking Nike, they must first catch Lululemon, Adidas, Puma, & Columbia my guy. Yeah, that’s how far off UA has fallen.

Under Armour made several fatal mistakes:

1. Jumped too far in the deep end of the ocean w/ Curry. UA made their name off of sports performance apparel (mind u, I have one of their original breathable undershirts that’s still in great shape today). They changed materials, & got into the footwear industry too quickly w/o consumer testing

2. That led to poor designs & poor performance shoes which hurt UA’s reputation

3. When they got into the sponsorship market in college, they were writing bad checks, assuming their forecast would remain on an incline. Unfortunately, they took another reputation hit by reneging off deal after deal

4. Curry shoes were hot for a quick second, but as mentioned in #2, his designs became memes, which hurt his branding & it never recovered

5. Players started complaining openly about cleats breaking on them & it became a global issue

6. Poor leadership due to **** poor financial reporting led to instability, creating a historic loss in evaluation.

Unfortunately, UA may be the story of Reebok, Fila, And1, DaDa & other sportswear companies that took or pushed for the #1 spot, but miscalculation after miscalculation created irreparable perception damage in which they never recovered. Plank is trying to rediscover the magic, so he’s throwing some Hail Marries. He has arguably the #1 WR in the game under fold, & now he has the presumptive #1 pick.

We’ll see if they can recover, but in my professional opinion I highly doubt it. In fact, most of their athletes have left after their initial contract. Curry has definitely changed the game, but he’s now getting flack for how the game is played. Also, unfortunately, his popularity is dwindling no fault of his own. Having a guy like D Fox carry on his brand is cool, but D Fox plays w Wemby now, & Wemby is 5x more popular than Fox, so Fox’s shoes r forgotten due to marketing/exposure.

So we’ll see if UA can turn it around, but it’s bleak.
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I can see them making a dent if they take a fashion angle and couple it with the athletes.
I’d sign dj’s, barbers, graffiti artists, writers, etc,
I’d make some expensive limited edition because that’s what people respect now a days.
In other words, make people take notice of your brand.

If people are wearing shredded jeans by the chomos at balenciega they will by some limited edition UVA’s that cost 1k because a rapper is wearing them.

But they better get some good designers.

And ultimately, make quality gear that works and performs.
 
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