Under Armour’s NCAA Tournament Marketing Strategy

Posted by admin on Mar 23, 2015

If you watched the NCAA Tournament this past weekend, you saw some great basketball and a variety of marketing strategies.  Under Armour Inc., which has six schools wearing its shoes and jerseys in the NCAA tournament, is gaining traction and market share in basketball shoes.  Basketball is one of the fastest-growing parts of the U.S. sporting goods industry. Sales surged 20 percent in 2014, about four times as fast as the overall athletic-shoe market

Under Armour endorsers include several tournament teams such as No. 4 seed Maryland, and No. 3 seed Notre Dame, which in January 2014 signed the richest apparel deal in college sports history. Under Armour’s Notre Dame deal brings the school more than $90 million over 10 years, according to Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick.  Founded in 1996, Baltimore-based Under Armour outfits 32 basketball programs at the highest level of college play and the entire athletic departments of 15 schools.

Last year, just one of its sponsored teams reached the tournament  (Stephen F. Austin), while Nike had 40, including eventual champion Connecticut. This year Nike still has the most at 48, including undefeated Kentucky. Eleven schools will wear Adidas AG, and three squads will have jerseys from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Russell Athletic, while wearing Nike shoes.

Under Armour marketers got $1.9 million in television exposure from Stephen F. Austin’s two tournament games last year, according to sponsorship evaluation firm Front Row Analytics. The company’s six teams this year will bring at least $3.9 million in exposure, which increases throughout the six-round tournament.

Source: Mason Levinson and Matt Townsend, “Under Armour is the NCAA Tournament’s Real Cinderella Story.” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 19, 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-19/under-armour-is-the-ncaa-tournament-s-real-cinderella-story

Discussion Questions:

1. Are investments like the $90 million Under Armour paid Notre Dame to wear its apparel, profitable marketing strategies?

2. Can you think of other effective product placement strategies in sports?