From right place, right time to wrong place, worst time – UCLA finds itself a free agent in the sports apparel market with less leverage and less available cash than ever.
2016’s 15-year/$280-million agreement between UCLA and Under Armour was the largest apparel deal in the history of college athletics, establishing UCLA as UA’s west-coast flagship program and giving effective, coast-to-coast visibility for the Under Armour brand. Included in the deal was an up-front payment of $15-million, $11-million annually in marketing fees, $2-million for facility upgrades and $7.4-million in UA apparel, footwear and equipment. Yesterday, only days before year-four of the agreement would officially begin, UA decided to officially terminate the agreement.
Under Armour is claiming a breach of the contract, citing the lack of “marketing benefits” that the company is contractually entitled to throughout the lifetime of the agreement. Skeptical minds will certainly land on other possible catalysts for the brand’s decision to end their highest-profile collegiate partnership.
UCLA and Under Armour aren’t alone in their recent struggles in navigating difficult economic circumstances during the worst pandemic of our lifetimes. The sportswear industry as a whole has seen dramatically reduced sales throughout the second quarter, leaving them in a scramble to reduce costs and batten down the hatches as we come to grips with another potential shut-down of athletic activities this fall.
Now that Under Armour is out on the Bruins, we can expect to see a miniature bidding war for the sponsorship rights of the still undeniably valuable and historic west-coast staple. While the finance blogs crunch numbers, let’s take a look at some possible uniform looks for UCLA football from the other top sportswear brands:
Adidas
Hell hath no fury like a corporation scorned. Even after UCLA’s three-year affair with Under Armour, most casual college athletics fans most likely still find the Adidas brand the most synonymous with Bruins athletics. For 18 years, UCLA exclusively wore the Three Stripes and had been treated as a premier college partner for the brand with marketing efforts comparable to long-time Adidas schools like Louisville and Kansas.
It’s unclear just how much love was lost after their breakup, but it should prove relatively painless for Adidas to pick up where they left off in executing the school’s branding if both parties can rekindle the flame. Here are some potential UCLA x Adidas football looks:
Nike
Nike is the dominant brand among PAC-12 Schools, outfitting seven out of the twelve member institutions. After Washington University’s decision to end a 20-year relationship with Nike and sign with Adidas in 2018, the market-share leader may have interest in reallocating those resources at a considerable and justifiable discount. An underlying revenge plot exists as well, since Under Armour had poached UC-Berkeley from Nike at the same time it had romanced UCLA away from Adidas. Here are some potential UCLA x Nike football looks:
Wildcard: Jordan Brand
Here’s a fun fact left out of the recent Michael Jordan documentary: MJ wanted to be a Bruin. The entire landscape of sports apparel could’ve been majorly different if UCLA had simply tried harder to recruit Jordan, and their uncertain branding future would’ve most likely been avoided had the GOAT been an alumnus this whole time.
Now that we have a handful of football-centric schools wearing Jordan on the gridiron, it’s not inconceivable that UCLA could end up as the first Jordan+Nike school in the PAC-12. It might be a tough sell to Nike themselves since they’ll likely want to keep the uniform spotlight on the University of Oregon, but in this climate, who knows?
Geared Up 