How Under Armour is tweaking products based on athletes’ feedback

Under Armour held some 200 meetings with college football players to talk through what they’d like from a new uniform, Kelsey Greenwell, design director at Under Armour, told Modern Retail. The company also watched players on the field and via tapes of games, noticing when they would tug at parts of their existing uniforms that irritated them. Under Armour spent months with the University of Maryland football players (who play less than an hour away from Under Armour’s headquarters) to hear their concerns, too.

“We really treat our athletes as part of our design team,” Greenwell said. “They not only collaborate with us before [the product comes out], but they collaborate with us during and after, as well. We really take pride in how much we work with the athletes.”

Under Armour launched in 1996 as a performance-focused athletic brand. It soon went public on the NYSE, expanded into footwear and inked deals with major athletes like Tom Brady. But over the past seven years, the brand has flip-flopped on performance, starting with its first quarterly loss ever in 2017. Recently, Under Armour launched several turnaround strategies, including efforts to bring in more women shoppers, double down on athleisure and boost its direct-to-consumer business. Now, Under Armour is placing a bigger emphasis on products it makes in tandem with athlete feedback, in what can be seen as a return to its roots.

For all types of sports, Under Armour is embedding itself within teams and rolling out more innovations based on suggestions from players and their coaches. In the past, these products have included a melt-resistant jersey fabric launched in 2017 and a sports bra with more movement released in 2020. Next up for women athletes, Under Armour is changing where players’ names are placed on some jerseys so they won’t be blocked by their long hair or ponytails. That update will come out in the fall of 2024.

Kyle Blakely, svp of innovation at Under Armour, told Modern Retail that the company has a “surgical approach” to uniforms — one that gives it “a true competitive advantage” over other brands that make uniforms. Nike, according to its website, offers uniforms for 48 college football teams, including Big Ten teams like the University of Michigan and the Ohio State University. Adidas, meanwhile, outfits football players at Texas A&M University, Rutgers University and North Carolina State University.

“Design innovation is a big push for us now — really understanding the placement of panels by millimeter to get the most performance possible, and then getting that player feedback at every position [on] what teammates need to be comfortable and successful,” Blakely said.

Under Armour is rolling out its new innovations for college athletes at the same time that the company is trying to recover from slipping sales. Under Armour’s revenue during its most recent fiscal first-quarter earnings dropped 10% year over year. Quarterly sales in its largest market, North America, were down 14% from a year prior. Meanwhile, Under Armour’s revenue for fiscal 2024 was down 3% year over year to total $5.7 billion. Its profits for the fourth quarter also sank by some 96%, compared with the year-ago period, per CNBC.

Now, Under Armour is trying to shift direction, although the company still expects revenue for fiscal 2025 to be “down at a low double-digit percentage rate.” Its founder Kevin Plank, who exited the company in 2019, came back in March as CEO. In May, Under Armour announced a restructuring plan that it estimated would cost between $70 million and $90 million. Under Armour implemented layoffs as part of the plan, and it is looking to reduce its SKU count by 25% by November 2025.

In a statement in May 2024, Plank attributed the changes at Under Armour to a “confluence of factors, including lower wholesale channel demand and inconsistent execution across our business.” “We are seizing this critical moment to make proactive decisions to build a premium positioning for our brand, which will pressure our top and bottom line in the near term,” Plank continued.

Part of that plan, Plank said, involves focusing on “better products and storytelling.” Its athletic innovations will likely be part of that.

In fact, Blakely told Modern Retail that the improved focus at Under Armour will allow his team to “be more surgical on the problems that we’re going to solve.” “I feel confident that what we’re working on for the future is aligned to what the brand needs,” he said. “For us, it’s just giving us clarity.”

Tom Nikic, svp of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told Modern Retail that it makes sense for Under Armour to focus on performance as part of its larger turnaround. “I’ve heard the company say for a long time that their products, from a technical perspective, are as good as anything else on the marketplace,” he said.

Still, that technical know-how may not be enough on its own to propel sales, in Nikic’s opinion. “You have to have a full 360-degree vision for the brand,” he said. “It’s got to be tied in with great marketing, great storytelling, great shopping experiences… Having some product innovation that is incrementally better for the core performance athlete that they’re looking at is good. But if it doesn’t come with better execution all around, then ultimately, it’s not going to matter in the long run.”

Under Armour, for its part, is optimistic that its products put the brand ahead of the pack. “We’re not building things to make Instagram posts,” Blakely said. “Everything we’re doing is to sustain… What the consumer can expect when they buy our brand is that commitment to performance and durability and comfort, and also, as we move forward, design. I’m really excited for what we have coming.”