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Is Second Best Enough?
Matthew McDonell
Columbia College
FINC 350G
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Is Second Best Enough?
Under Armour
Under Armour was started by Kevin Plank, who was a football captain at the
University of Maryland. At the time, most college teams wore cotton products under
their pads and uniforms, which did not allow for good moisture wicking and often left the
players weighed down due to the dampness from the clothing. Kevin was not a fan of the
cotton as were other members of his football team and other teams at Maryland. Kevin
wanted to come up with a product that would help his performance on the field.
Kevin started planning and working with companies in New York to find
materials that would give him the type of performance that he wanted. After working
with various people in the city and coming up with some early prototypes, Kevin was
able to have his friends at Maryland and players who he knew that had gone to the NFL,
test his product. Once everyone got back to him, he continued to perfect the product
making it better at wicking moisture and making it lighter and cooler, temperature wise.
Kevin took a bit to perfect his product with insights from fellow college students
and from friends in the NFL. His next step involved a big leap of faith. Kevin proceeded
to max credit cards out, racking up around $40,000 in debt and moved into the
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Washington, DC basement of his grandmother. It took Kevin over one year to secure his
first big sale, Georgia Tech. The rest was history. Kevin’s company is now worth in
excess of $17 billion with over 10,000 employees, and reaches the four major sports in
America as well as many other professional and collegiate level platforms throughout the
world. As of May 2015, Forbes ranked Under Armour as the 87th best Employer in
America.
Ironically, something worth noting about Under Armour is that it might not have
been true blue professional or college sports that gave the company its big break. Around
2000, Any Given Sunday and The Replacements came out and featured all uniforms and
branding courtesy of Under Armour. The movies were seeking someone that could
provide something realistic looking and functional, but didn’t require the movie
producers to secure deals with the NFL. Under Armour succeeded and gained tons of
free publicity from both movies, which were small blockbusters in their own rights. After
the movies previewed Under Armour to the masses, their first television commercial
aired with three simple words, “ Protect This House”.
Nike
Nike…The company that has embodied athletes for over 25 years. When you
hear Nike, your first thoughts are probably of Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, and Tiger
Woods. Nike has positioned itself in the sports world as the predominant powerhouse.
They are everywhere from high schools to the pros, with many stops between.
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Nike is one of the farthest-reaching businesses in the world and the iconic
“Swoosh” and “Just Do It” are known by almost everyone with some type of media
exposure in their life. The company started around the early 1960’s. The story of Phil
Knight and Bill Bowerman is widely known, but the fact that Steve Prefontaine was
involved, is not. Part of the reason that Bowerman and Knight started their company was
to give Prefontaine a better set of shoes to compete in.
Nike was valued at $86 billion in early 2015 and employs over 56,000 employees
worldwide. Both of these numbers place Nike as the largest and most valuable sporting
brands in the world. As of May 2015, Forbes lists Nike as the 18th Most Valuable Brand
