The items are coming collectively for the startup basketball league Unrivaled.
The 3×3 girls’s hoops league introduced Tuesday that it has signed a multiyear deal for Under Armour to turn into its official uniform accomplice and efficiency clothes shop. This follows the league saying quite a few recent big player signings and reaching a media broadcast deal in October with TNT Sports.
Financial phrases of the deal weren’t offered, however Under Armour will present all gamers, coaches and employees with efficiency attire and equipment each on and off the court docket.
“We couldn’t be extra thrilled to accomplice with Unrivaled to outfit a number of the greatest girls’s basketball gamers on this planet as they compete on this thrilling new stage,” mentioned Sean Eggert, Under Armour senior vp of worldwide sports activities advertising and marketing.
The retailer mentioned that each one gamers who wouldn’t have an lively shoe deal could have Under Armour basketball footwear choices out there to them. Additionally, Under Armour will give gamers the chance to create customized merchandise.
Unrivaled will kick off its inaugural season Jan. 17 in Miami. The league has positioned itself as a vacation spot for WNBA stars to play basketball within the U.S. throughout the offseason.
In the previous, many WNBA gamers have needed to go abroad to play within the offseason as a technique to complement the revenue. Starting wage within the WNBA is $64,154 in line with ESPN.
Unrivaled has signed 36 high gamers by providing attractive financial incentives that embody fairness. The league mentioned it provides the very best common salaries in girls’s skilled sports activities league historical past. It’s being backed by quite a few traders.
This newest deal comes as Baltimore-based Under Armour is within the midst of a turnaround effort after founder Kevin Plank took the helm once more this previous March. Former Marriott govt Stephanie Linnartz had been within the function for barely a yr earlier than she was ousted; she was the second CEO the corporate had cycled via in less than two years.
Over the previous few years, the model has struggled to maintain up with competitors and drive full-price gross sales, counting on promotions and the off-price channel to maneuver its merchandise.
Before she left, Linnartz had been attempting to market extra to girls and enhance the product providing, however when Plank retook the helm, he walked that technique again and mentioned the corporate can be doubling down on its males’s attire enterprise. He later introduced a turnaround plan that facilities on making Under Armour a premium model and pulling again on discounting so it will possibly enhance earnings and increase demand.
Last month, the corporate noticed a vivid spot when reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings. It lifted its annual revenue forecast and Plank mentioned the turnaround is “starting to realize traction.” Still, the inventory is down about 81% from its all-time excessive on Sept. 17, 2015.
Under Armour’s cope with Unrivaled provides a glimpse into the place the corporate is placing its cash and, maybe, signifies it needs to focus extra on feminine athlete because it seems to capitalize on the hype of ladies’s sports activities to reenergize the model.
Under Armour presently has partnerships with high girls’s faculty packages such because the University of South Carolina, Notre Dame, Maryland and Utah.
“As a model, we now have an extended historical past of investing in girls’s basketball, from the grassroots degree all the way in which as much as the professionals,” Eggert mentioned.
