How Under Armour Bounced Back After America Blamed It For Losing The 2014 Olympics
The 2016 Olympics were quite a victory for Under Armour. The sportswear brand attached itself to some of the biggest names in the competition, including endorsers Michael Phelps and the US women’s gymnastics team, which sported Under Armour on the mat. Its clever commercial starring Phelps brought Under Armour major exposure during the Rio games—even though it’s not an official Olympic sponsor. And its only misstep was that the swimmer wore rival Nike on the cover of Sports Illustrated. During the 2014 winter games in Sochi, Russia, however, Under Armour was in a very different position. What should have been a shining moment for the brand on the world stage devolved into a global public-relations nightmare. By February 2014, the Baltimore, Maryland-based brand, which started out making compression shirts in 1996, had grown into a major player in the US sports-apparel space. Its sales more than doubled since 2010, reaching $2.3 billion in 2013. And it was angling to become a global household name, on par with larger rivals Nike and Adidas. Read more at Quartz.
