Under Armour 2007 Annual Report Download - page 13

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 13 of the 2007 Under Armour annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 92

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92

Sports Marketing
Our global marketing and promotion efforts begin with a strategy of selling our products to high-performing
athletes and teams on the collegiate and professional levels. We implement this strategy through professional and
collegiate sponsorships, individual athlete agreements and by selling our products directly to team equipment
managers and to individual athletes. As a result, our uniforms, gloves, socks, footwear and other items of apparel
are seen on the field, giving our products exposure to various consumer audiences, through television, magazines
and live at sporting events. This exposure to consumers helps us establish on-field authenticity as consumers can
see our products being worn by high-performing athletes. We are the official outfitter of the Texas Tech
University and University of South Carolina football teams, several teams at the University of Maryland and the
Auburn University athletic program. We supply uniforms, sideline apparel and fan gear for these teams. Under
Armour also signed an agreement in August 2006 to be an official supplier of footwear to the National Football
League (“NFL”), a step we took to complete the circle of authenticity from the Friday night lights of high school
to Saturday afternoon college game day to the marquee Sunday match-ups of the NFL. This agreement enables
NFL players to wear Under Armour footwear on the field and enables Under Armour to reach fans at the highest
level of competitive football.
We also have sponsorship agreements with individual athletes. While our roster of athletes has included
established stars, like Vernon Davis, Alfonso Soriano and Heather Mitts, our strategy has been and continues to
be to find the next generation of stars, like NFL player Bob Sanders, 2007 NFL Defensive Player of the Year,
and Kimmie Meissner, a national women’s figure skating champion. In addition to individual athletes, we sell
our products domestically to professional football teams and Division I men’s and women’s collegiate athletic
teams, including many Division I college football programs.
Internationally, we are selling our products to European soccer and rugby teams. We are an official supplier
of performance apparel to the Fulham Football Club of England and 1860 Munich of Germany’s Bundesliga,
among others. In addition, we are an official supplier of performance apparel to Hockey Canada and have
advertising rights throughout the Air Canada Center during the Toronto Maple Leafs’ home games. We have also
been designated as the Official Sponsor of Athletic Performance Apparel of the Toronto Maple Leafs. We
believe these relationships create significant on-field product and brand exposure that contributes to our on-field
authenticity.
We seek to sponsor events to drive awareness and brand authenticity from a grassroots level. For example,
we are a sponsor of the ESPY Awards Show each July and have used the national platform to launch our fall
commercial campaigns. We also sponsor ESPN’s Bassmasters Classic to reach hunting and fishing enthusiasts.
In keeping with our “next great athlete” strategy, we also sponsor events such as the College Football All Star
Challenge, which is broadcast nationally within Super Bowl programming and features the country’s top players
headed for the NFL. In addition, we are the title sponsor of The Under Armour (Baltimore) Marathon, we make a
significant brand appearance at numerous other major races, and we are the title sponsor of The Under Armour
Lacrosse Classic. We are the title sponsor of the Under Armour Senior Bowl, which is the annual competition
between the top seniors in college football, and the Under Armour All-American Game, which is the annual
competition between the top seniors in high school football. We partner with the Baseball Factory to outfit the
nation’s top high school baseball athletes from head-to-toe and serve as the title sponsor for nationally-
recognized tournaments and teams. We participate “on the mountain” at the ESPN Winter X Games where winter
sport athletes, including skiers, snowboarders, and snowmobilers, gather for events.
Media and Promotion
We feature our men’s and women’s products in a variety of national publications such as ESPN the
Magazine,Maxim,Shape, and People Magazine, and we also advertise regularly in several outdoor and sport-
specific publications.
3