Under Armour's Attack on Nike | Signature Sneakers | 3

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Business Wars ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. From Audible Originals, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. Back in the 1980s, when Michael Jordan signed a lifetime deal with an upstart running shoe brand called Nike, choosing them over established footwear giants like Converse and Adidas. That revolutionized the signature sneaker landscape and catapulted Nike to the top of the marketplace. Well, Under Armour made a similar place signing Steph Curry in 2013 with, let's say, mixed results. But one thing is clear nowadays, every star athlete needs a signature line from shoes to apparel and athlete's year, and with a rise of newer international brands like On and Anta. Athletes have more choice than ever when it comes to finding the perfect fit for their shoe deal. The jury's still out on whether the Nike's and Adidas's of the world are feeling the heat. Here to unpack or should I say unbox all that? Is sneaker in sports tech industry reporter Tim Newcomb? Tim's work has appeared in Forbes Times, Sports Illustrated Esquire and more. He chronicled Kobe Bryant signature kicks and tennis legend Roger Federer's split with Nike. We'll talk about the rise of the signature shoe. The new players in the sneaker game and how Under Armour picks up the pieces of the Steph Curry fallout. So lace them up. That's all I had. Tim Newcomb, welcome to Business Wars. Thank you, David. I appreciate you taking this time to have me. Yes, really great to have you. I gather you covered the sneaker in sports apparel industry for Forbes Sports Illustrated. Lots of outlets over what is it at least a decade now, I guess. How did you get started on this beat? What was it that got you interested in this? I've always been interested in sports and enjoyed sports, but instead of covering the actual games and the actual on field or on court play, I've always gravitated towards some of those peripheral things, whether it's uniforms or technology or stadiums or anything that kind of makes sports happen. So what is it? Are you interested more in the business side, the deals or is it like the products themselves? I love the technology and the products and when you have a product, there's a business aspect to it because there's marketing involved and all that. So I think they all kind of meld together, even the technology and the business merged together, especially in sports when you're hiring these athletes to pedal the products. So you know what I thought you were going to say Tim, so many people are sneaker heads these days. I don't know about, are you a sneaker head or are you not? I would not classify myself as a sneaker head. Those that know me maybe would disagree based on the number of shoes in my closet, but I am not one of these hardcore sneaker head individuals, but I do enjoy the history of them, the process of creating them, the design, all that kind of stuff doesn't treat me, but I'm not a collector. I'm fascinated by the whole culture around the collecting of sneakers. Some people are into particular brands, some people are into the retro stuff, you know, the whole thing just absolutely blows me away. But this is a great entry for us to begin talking about underarmor because in our series, we've been hearing about how this really important athletic brand and the partnerships that they created with star athletes can really help build that brand and the reputation and the public eye. No, you covered Steph Curry's rocky tenure with underarmor for Forbes, but I have to ask you about the origins of the signature sneaker nowadays. It seems like every athlete has one. How did this all get started? Chuck Taylor's by Converse or does it go back further? Yeah, actually, well that goes pretty far. You're over 100 years back there with Chuck Taylor for Converse. So those days sneaker companies were rubber companies. They were, you know, Converse was a rubber company to start and then they started making sneakers and the Chuck Taylor, as you say, is considered the first signature sneaker. Chuck Taylor was a former professional basketball player and he turned salesman for Converse and he was a coach at the same time. And it just turned out that they could sell more sneakers if they put this gentleman's very recognizable name in the world of basketball. If they could put his name on the side of the sneaker, then it helped sales. So that's how you got your first signature sneaker, the Chuck Taylor from Converse. Seems to me like Chuck might have had a bit of an entrepreneurial or marketing bent himself. No. Well, I didn't know Chuck personally. I'm not quite that old David, but you know, definitely there's a business side to how all this started. So yes, there's definitely the entrepreneurial salesman aspect and finding ways to make your product sell better. And you know, this was the first foray into that and it all comes from a business world. Yeah, for sure. Converse now owned by Nike. They seem to have a stranglehold on the on the basketball market for decades. But I know tennis played a big role in the popularization of signature sneakers too. I'm thinking Adidas Stan Smith, right? You've written about that one too, huh? Oh, yeah. For sure. The signature sneaker market really did take off with tennis. You had the Chuck Taylor's back in the 1920s. But then in the 60s and 70s when sneaker culture became a thing with signature sneakers. It was the tennis world Adidas led the way you have the Stan Smith that we all know about the Rod Labor was actually a huge shoe at that time for Adidas as well. You had a handful of athletes actually had John Newcomb from Australia. He had a signature sneaker with Adidas and then Lotto. And even today we talk about, you know, female athletes with signature sneakers that actually started in tennis as well with a Billie Jean King from Adidas or a Chris. Yeah. You know, so the signature sneaker concept really was behind the individual athlete in tennis because in those days, the individual athlete was marketed differently than a team athlete. Yeah. That classic white and green design of the Stan Smith seemed to be sort of especially iconic. Do you have any personal favorites? Personally, I like tennis. That's my favorite sport. So when I was growing up, the Rod Labor was my favorite because it was a little bit counter culture, I guess, to the Stan Smith. It had the suede toe on there is a little bit more robust. So the Rod Labor is my favorite kind of classic signature sneaker. I'm going to ask you something. Was it the style of the sneaker that drove your affection for the Rod Labor or was it Rod Labor? How much of that was a part of the celebrity versus say the style? Yeah, I think for me, it was definitely the style because I grew up in the late 80s and 90s, you know, just to date myself here for all your listeners. Rod Labor, he was, you know, he was the 60s. So I didn't know Rod Labor or Stan Smith, the athlete really, you know, high school kid. I'm looking at the style of the sneakers and what's popular, although when they were being sold, it was about, you know, players on tour in their name. This sort of goes to a distinction that's easy to overlook and that is you got the signature sneaker. And then you've got these big dollar endorsement deals. How is a signature deal different from an endorsement? A signature deal is bigger all the way around. And when I say all the way around, that means it's going to be bigger for the athlete in terms of dollars. But it's also a major investment for the brand. And whether it be basketball or tennis, you're asking a brand to sink a lot of money into creating a specific signature. A specific silhouette designed around a specific player. So there's a lot of R&D money involved in that. And then your marketing money is tied directly to one individual player. And so that's a different way to do marketing than if you're just marketing the entire brand obviously. And so then what happens is if that goes well, then it can go really well. As we all know from Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, if it doesn't go well, then you've sunk a lot of money into a shoe that maybe isn't selling very well. But there's really no recourse to turn that around if the athlete doesn't have the cash a to bring in the dollars. In a way, sometimes it seems like the athlete or the athletes mark on the item somehow transcends sports and becomes part of, you know, casual wear in a larger sense, air Jordans, the Chuck tailors with converse, a similar kind of thing. And that seems to be where a lot of sneaker makers want to want to push things. Are I wrong about that? Oh, that's obviously where everybody wants to be if you can get your product to transcend the niche that it was created in. I mean, you think of that from really any product. whether it's athletic wear or anything, if you have a product that goes beyond the niche it was created for, then you have now, obviously broadened your consumer base exponentially. And so you brought up Eric Jordan, the Jordan brand did that so well because Jordan was so popular and basketball culture and sneaker culture was booming at the time. So now you're transcending, you have people buying it for more than just performance wear. And if you can open up that consumer option beyond that one little niche, then you've created a lot of opportunity. - You know, when you think about how these deals are set up and how they work, who really benefits more? Is it the athlete or the brand? Does the athlete see this as a paycheck primarily? Or does the athlete see this as a jumping off point for their own brand in a sense? - Yeah, that's a good question. I think a little bit depends on the athlete and how they view it can help determine their success. Take somebody like Kobe, for example, he saw this as an opportunity to partner with Nike and really create a product that was very much his, even though it was with Nike. But then that helped him build his personal brand, which includes additional sponsorships beyond Nike while growing the Kobe line within the Nike brand and just being willing to do whatever was needed to do to promote his signature sneaker helped it grow. Granted, he was one of the best players at the time. So that helps things as well. But then you also have other athletes that maybe don't get that business side as well. They just see it as a paycheck. And if they're not willing to put in extra time to make things better, to do promotion, things of that nature, it's gonna struggle for that shoe to take off. - Well, let's go back to Steph Curry and Under Armour, which obviously is the focus of our most recent series here. I was fascinated by how Under Armour sort of tried to lure in Steph Curry by sort of appealing to his, shall we say ego just a bit, you know, the idea that they were going to make him a bit of a star within their own realm in a way. Do you see that Under Armour partnership with Steph Curry as benefiting Curry Moore or benefiting Under Armour Moore? How do you see that playing out? Or did it just, did it ultimately fall flat over the course of time? - Ultimately, it didn't work the way either of them wanted it to obviously since they're no longer together. But the blueprint was, let's help each other help each other where it gives rise to Curry himself as a brand. It puts him on a superstar pedestal, allows him to build his personal portfolio, allows him to be the face of an entire brand Under Armour in this case, it gives Under Armour a star athlete that was at the superstar level to give them credibility in the performance game of basketball, which they maybe didn't have at that time. And that cool factor too, you can't skip that, right? - Well, and I think you bring up the cool factor and a lot of folks would say that's what the downfall was with the Under Armour Curry partnership was that just never got the cultural cachet that some other brands had, whether it was Under Armour coming in without having a history of cool design or a history of kind of connecting to basketball culture, you have people feel like they're forcing the issue and it never really caught on. So yeah, if it had caught on in culture is cool, well then great, that helps you even more, but being that it didn't, that was maybe ultimately the downfall of it. - So I'm wondering, is there not a larger lesson that you can extract or one could extract from that experience? Was Under Armour unique because they needed some of that authentication that they were hoping Steph Curry could bring to it? But it's so difficult to bring in the cool factor if you're a company when you haven't established yourself as cool, that's, it's always that sort of first hump if you haven't established your sort of cultural bona fides if you will. - Yeah, I mean, I think that hits it exactly on. It's like every brand is out there searching for how do we become the it factor, how do we push ourselves beyond all the competition. And there's really no way to manufacture it, otherwise everybody would be doing it all the time. Everybody's just hoping for that one hit. I mean, I'm gonna go way off stream here, but think of a water bottles, we had hydroflask was huge and then Stanley and then all while it's just like, there's cultural trends and how do you know how do you know which one's gonna hit? And so yes, Under Armour was trying to set themselves up to hit the next cultural trend by aligning themselves with a mega superstar who was exceedingly popular at the time, Steph Curry, but it never hit from a cultural cool standpoint. And that's just something they weren't able to figure out. - Hey, we need to check our laces real fast. Our guest is Tim Newcom, he's a freelance journalist specializing in the sneaker industry and sports retail. And when we come back, we're gonna take a look at how Nike paved the way for the disruptors in the sneaker space today. Stay with us. - I'm in Dravana and in the latest season of the Spy Who, we open the file on Larry Chin, the spy who outplayed Nixon. For decades, Chin was embedded deep inside US intelligence. Then comes an opportunity, Richard Nixon's secret plan to reopen relations with China. Information Chin can place directly into Mao's hands. But the CIA has a weapon of their own, a Chinese mole ready to defect, how long until Chin's gig is up. Follow the spy who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. (dramatic music) - Hey there, welcome back to Business Wars. Our guest is Tim Newcom. He's covered the sports tech industry for sports illustrated time and Esquire among others. You know, today, Tim, we think of Nike as probably King of the Hill when it comes to sports brands, but the origins of the Air Jordan, which were featured in that film, Air. Show how Nike revolutionized the sneaker industry when the company was still just a startup. And there's a great scene in that movie where Sunny Vicaro played by Matt Damon, pitches Michael Jordan and his family at Nike headquarters in Oregon. Now I'm sure there's some dramatic liberties taken in the film, but what do you think Nike could offer Jordan in '84 that the converses of the world couldn't? - They offered Michael Jordan something that nobody else was really able to offer at the time, and that was being the face of a brand. In fact, that's one of the more famous reasons he didn't sign with converse at that time, which was the leader, so to speak, in basketball shoes, was they had magic and bird and Dr. J and all these superstar athletes, they told them, we can't put you in front of them. They're big legendary all-stars where Nike, they were the challenger brand at the time, and so they had the opportunity to make Jordan the face of the brand. - Yeah, at other companies, I guess, she would be a big fish, but there'd be a lot of big fish swimming around at Nike, he's the main event. - Exactly, they put all their eggs in that basket and it only grew for them. - Talk about risky though. How much of a risk do you think it was for Nike to go out on a limb there and put it all on Jordan? - Well, they have to start somewhere. At that point, they really need to make a mark. So yeah, they have the risk of signing him to the contract and I don't have the figures in front of me, but whatever that first dollar sign was, that was really their only risk at the time 'cause they have to do something, they have to really make a name for themselves, but at the same time, if Jordan doesn't pan out the way Jordan paned out, there's no way we're talking about it right now. - Do you think that maybe that was a kind of watershed moment because you know, you think about some of the later sneakers that came along, Reebok with Alan Iverson, right? Kobe Bryant, Sedidas' and later Nike's. And as with the Jordan's, it's not just one shoe, but each version becomes its own release, its own major event. That's gotta be a great business strategy for the shoe companies and for the athletes too, but when did the whole sneaker head thing kick off? Because I have a sense that that sort of also revolutionized the business in a way because you ended up with people who had to be sort of, what do they call them? It's not absolutists, but completists, that's what I'm looking for. If as soon as you had the release of another Jordan, you had people already in line for it, you know, days, if not weeks ahead of time and then you had a whole business on the side with bidding wars over, you know, getting those shoes. And there was the whole limited edition factor too, right? - I think there were just so many different aspects [BLANK_AUDIO] business and marketing that merged together at the perfect time for Nike with the athlete that nobody would have guessed would have transcended the sport in the way he did. There's no way to replicate what happened in that situation. Yes, you have fans that now are clamoring for shoes. Like we didn't have lineups for shoes before. We have the signature releases on an annual basis with special editions coming out later on. So there's a whole consumerism there that didn't exist. We have a culture around shoes that didn't exist before. Yeah. And in a way, the brand itself is sort of telling a story about the player and about itself. You had a really fascinating sports illustrated story about Kobe Bryant's career and how each subsequent sneaker sort of signified that next step. And it seems like from the outside, he was very intentional and aware of a kind of narrative that he was telling through his sneakers, right? Oh, for sure. Kobe was very locked in to the story he was telling and the persona that he was presenting and it all worked into building his brand. The whole, the Mamba idea, the after the Achilles tear, you have one shoe that has these stitches, these red marks on the back of the shoe. Basically, the stitches where the Achilles tendon would be, every color way, brands are trying to tell stories behind each color way that are personal and connect and really trying to connect an athlete that most people are never even going to see live, let alone meet trying to connect that athlete to these consumers so that they'll be more interested in the product. It almost seems like in the mind of many consumers for these sneakers that these sports legends represent superheroes, each with a little aspect of their personality, that you, when you buy that shoe, you're sort of buying into that storyline. You know what I mean? Oh, for sure. Definitely a correlation there, a connection of I want to be part of this athlete's journey of their success, of their career and be a part of that. And on the flip side, there's a little bit of risk to that if I'm a brand because in order for me to want to to lock in and be part of this journey with this athlete, then you're going to have to want to like this athlete and they're going to have to want to be performing and playing otherwise. And behaving that you're not going to see them. Yeah, exactly. There's, but you know, there's an element too where, you know, how much bad behavior that brings a different kind of consumer. You know, if, if you think back to tennis again, you have the 90s, you had the Pete Samperist versus Andre Agassi, Nike played that up like nobody's business. Samperist, the straight laced, you know, by the book, Rule Follower and Agassi, you know, it's the rebel without a cause. If we're going to borrow the, you know, Canon camera line, you know, and the long hair and the bright colors. I mean, so much of this is, is manufactured marketing. But now if I'm a consumer who's more of a straight laced type person that really enjoys somebody that follows every rule, I'm probably going to gravitate toward the Samperist shoes and gear. And if I'm the other person, anti country club and all that kind of stuff, hey, I like the Agassi stuff. So now Nike has created an avenue for both types of consumers to have a way into their brand. Sort of reminds me a little bit of that Beatles versus Stones thing back in the 60s. If you could have worn those on your feet, that would have been pretty cool. There's a little bit of that going on. It sounds like, oh, for sure. Yeah, every way to connect with a consumer brands are going to look for it. Yeah. Now, I'm curious when you look at the Kobe lines, and she really focused in on that for that sports illustrated article. Did you have any particular favorites? My favorite, I think, was the Kobe X, the Kobe 10 because that was the one where I sat down with with Kobe and LA and really had a deep conversation about that and what he was thinking. The first colorway was this blue color because he remembered getting up crazy early when he was rehabbing from the Achilles tear and swimming because that was really kind of the first thing you can do with an Achilles tear to kind of get back into shape. There's a blue colorway to tie to the swimming that he would do really early every morning. It really did tell a story. For somebody who was a fan of Kobe, you can really see how that can resonate with them. If they're pulling for him to succeed and it has this tie to something that's real in his life. Now, a little sort of breaking down the fourth wall, if you will, here. When you were doing that interview, were you thinking, "Okay, Kobe's been really well trained on this storyline?" Or did you get a sense it was coming from the heart from him? That's a great question because I've interviewed dozens, hundreds of athletes and a lot of them are tied to products and brand appearances and things of that nature. You can tell the ones that they don't want to be there. They don't last with that brand very long. You can tell the ones that are just completely coached and rehearsed and it's like, "They don't come across super well." Then you have the ones like Kobe and Roger Federer, who they really care. Kobe, this was something he actually worked on and partnered with and this was really important to him because it represented him. His shoe represented him and he wanted it to look and feel and be a certain way and he really cared. To answer your question specifically about Kobe, I could tell that yes, he lived and died each detail of his signature shoe, which is not the case for every athlete. Jeff Curry signed with Under Armour in 2013, three decades after Jordan signed with Nike. Let's talk a little bit about the Ecos there. You have this emerging star athlete signing with a less established sportswear brand. What about similar versus different when you're looking at Jordan and Nike versus Steph and Under Armour? From the outside from the first glance, you do have that, "Oh, wow, this is similar. You have a rising superstar in the sport of basketball signing with what would be considered a challenger brand at the time." Yes, Jordan with Nike, Curry with Under Armour, similar in that way. The difference is, or what we talk about with the establishment of a culture. In the '80s basketball culture, it wasn't an established culture the way it has grown. Fast forward, like you said, 30 years and it does make it difficult for a challenger brand that already had basically a vision in the public eye of what they were to then break in and be relevant. Let's fast forward a bit. What do you make of what Steph's doing now, wearing different classic signature sneakers from other athletes and brands at every game? I think there's even a Curry Watch website that chronicles every sneaker he's worn since the split, right? Yes, it's definitely interesting, since he's split with Under Armour in late 2025 to really run the gamut and where basically any shoe you can imagine from Retro to his own, to other brands, to the popular, to not popular. He's obviously working toward a deal for next year at this point. It's keeping his decision at front of mine to sneaker fans. When he does make that announcement of who he's signing with, probably will come with a little bit more intrigue. There's a lot of anticipation over where this is all headed. Looks like he's up to 63 and counting right now in terms of the number of different sneakers. He's worn since that split. There's been a lot of speculation about where he land as you were talking about. One contender, kind of interesting, Anta. That's a Chinese brand that certainly doesn't have the name recognition in the US, but it seems to have emerged as this real big player on the international sportswear scene. I'm wondering what you think, if anything, that says about where we are with signature sneakers today. Yeah, Anta is one of the biggest sportswear brands in the world. Based in China, like you said, has a huge following. There's professional NBA players with Anta deals. I think it shows how the proliferation of athletic brands has only grown with an Anta. Just adds to the overall options for players and for fans. It's not that far-fetched to think that a star player is going to sign with a brand that isn't Nike or Adidas or one of the classic traditional brands. We're talking with Business Reporter Tim Nukum, and let's take a quick time out. When we come back, we'll hear more from Tim on how other big name athletes have split with major brands, namely Roger Federer, and we'll learn about some of the new players in this sneaker game. Stay with us. Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. We're talking with Business Reporter Tim Nukum, who's covered this space of sneakers and athletes for some time for various publications. And Tim, I want to ask you about Roger Federer's split with Nike. In 2018, to a lot of people's surprise, Roger didn't resign with Nike, opted for a $300 million 10-year deal with Japanese brand Uniclo. How did that play out, do you think? Well, we've heard from Roger's agent, Tony Gotzik, on how this played out. And it was funny because you say Roger didn't resign with Nike. It was actually the other way around. Nike didn't resign, Roger. Roger was fully planning on resigning with Nike. But at the same time, Roger and his agent, Tony, had certain terms, so to speak, that they wanted met for a new deal. And he was nearing the end of his career. And Nike didn't feel that it was worth the financial investment to sign an aging, near-retirement superstar to that kind of money that obviously worked out exceedingly well for Roger to land the Uniclo deal, who at the time, talking about challenger brands trying to break in, was willing to give Roger really an obscene amount of money to wear clothing, both on and off the court, whether he was playing or not. And then it allowed him to open the footwear world to himself and invest in the brand on, which is now doing quite well. I'm wondering if this has gotten to be such a big part of establishing yourself as a brand in the sports world, having to have a lot of money that you can offer someone like Roger Federer, even given the negatives that you were articulating there about, you know, what Nike saw in the end of his career, that sort of thing. How much of this do you see as the centerpiece going forward for upstarts? Are we nearing a point at which it's just too expensive, it's not going to be worth it, or is this going to be with us for the foreseeable future? Indorsement deals will always be part of athletics and the bigger the name, the bigger the price tag, but you'll have brands that want to have that name associated with their brand so they're willing to pay. Different brands have different strategies. Do they try to sign a bunch of young players to smaller deals, hoping one of them hits, and then they can keep going, or if they're a small brand, they only sign smaller names, but they're never going to be able to afford when that player becomes a superstar. And then you have other brands that maybe they want one superstar, because that's all they can afford, but they're willing to go all eggs in one basket, and then you have other brands where, you know, they're rich enough that they can afford a few of them at one time, but it's all a matter of where they put their marketing dollars, and wherever the consumer eyeballs are, that's where the marketing dollars are going to go. I don't want to leave what Federer did here too quickly, because Uniclo doesn't make sneakers. Federer, as you mentioned, went with the Swiss company on, which he also owns a stake-in to produce his own signature sneakers. Why did he go that route? That one for him was he's one of the richest athletes in the history of sport. So it isn't like he needs to chase a sneaker deal just for the sake of having a sneaker deal. So it allowed him the opportunity to explore. And he lives in Switzerland, lives in Switzerland, on as a Swiss-based, Zurich-based company, he met the owners, and liked what they were doing. His wife was wearing the shoe. The running shoe is a running brand to start. And so he decides to invest in the company. And then the next logical step is let's take this running shoe company and let's add a tennis line. And that takes some time, some R&D and whatnot. And that's how it all transpired. But it almost seems like it's part of a bigger break. Steph Curry, Roger Federer, able to retain their own brand separate from Under Armour and Nike. It does kind of feel like or at least look from a distance like a fundamental shift. I wonder if star athletes are going to see themselves as less dependent or reliant on big legacy brands for building out their own brands. I'm wondering if the power dynamic, especially what with China coming on strong, has shifted, given all the choices that are out there. Yeah, I think there's an element to that. But at the same time, you have to remember the sheer number of superstars are few and far between Roger Federer is the biggest name in the history of tennis arguably. Michael Jordan, the biggest name in basketball history, arguably. Obviously, there's a few you could throw in the mix. But these are some of the biggest names the sport has ever seen able to stand on their own. You're not going to have that with very many athletes. In order to get there, they're still going to need the legacy brands or the challenger brands to help them get there. Because it takes a career and a long time to get to that mega superstar status. You will have had the help of brands we've all known the name of along the way. I want to put you on the hot seat if you had an opportunity to counsel a younger athlete. What would you tell that person about how they should be thinking about apparel deals and endorsements? Is there a sort of a standard way to go now? If you're a super young athlete, with a long lead time toward hopefully longevity, you at that point, you're maybe looking at a brand that's going to support you in a way and put money into you through sponsorships and through products that would be a little bit different avenue than a big brand just giving you a blanket check. You see some of these brands are maybe even offering some equity as part of it. These are all business decisions and everything obviously comes with risk reward. But there is an element of needing to weigh out what's best for me now versus what might be best for me five, 10 years down the road. I'm curious. Are there any other brands emerging sneaker brands that we should all be watching out for? You have a few different Chinese brands right now that are continuing on that path using basketball. As an entry point, the ANTA, you have 361 degrees, you have peak. The list continues to grow as more and more brands move into the space. I want to circle back to our underarmour because it's been a tough stretch for that brand. They've lost some star athletes and deals with college programs and the MLB and had turnovers and leadership. What do you think got away from them? I think they got too big, too fast, which is an easy thing to say, but they didn't have the premium aspect. They weren't considered a quality brand is my opinion is when you went to buy underarmour product, you knew the only way you were going to buy it was on sale. It was in stores as discounted online. It was sales all the time. They had a struggle with not only from the top end with the curry of not having that cultural relevance of considered a stylish brand or a cool brand, but they also had a quality question mark not saying the product wasn't quality, but it didn't appear so because of the way it was positioned in the retail space. It's one thing when you see a branded foot locker, it's another if you see it on sale at Coles. Exactly. What do you think is next for underarmour? Do you think they can weather this storm? Is there a way to get back to their roots or find something new or is that brand permanently damaged? How do you see it? I think underarmour needs to, like you said, get back to the roots. They need to find what niche is going to work for them. I remember when I was younger and you talk about playing in a cold weather game, you'd ask, "Hey, are you going to put your underarmour on before we go out there?" The generic term, like Kleenex, they need to own that. They need to own that type of space where we're training gear, we're running gear, we're cold weather gear, we're hot weather gear, we're gear for athletes. I think you see them going that way, where we're going to focus on the individual that wants to train hard and work hard and give them options from an apparel point of view and a sneaker point of view to make that happen. Have you seen anything about their new halo brand? The underarmour halo isn't just any other sneaker, but rather a fleet of innovative footwear crafted to maneuver the complex plan mechanics of running, training and everything between me. And that's where you see it. You have what they would consider some premium training running gear with both the sneakers and the apparel and trying to place themselves. as the new way to go for if you're going to train and work out. I guess the real question is whether or not this running and training sneaker space has got enough room left for, you know, underarm or to attach itself as, you know, that kind of Kleenex or Band-Aid. It's hard for me to imagine, frankly. It is the largest space in athletic wear, the training and running space. It is massive. And so there's always room for one more, but doesn't mean that you get the largest slice of the pie. Yeah. Hey, before we go, I'm wondering if you had your brothers, you had your whole pick of any sneaker from any era, any sport. What would it be? That's a great question because I could answer it two ways. One is I'd go back to the one that I first enjoyed and that is a Rod-Laver sneaker. And then answer number two is, well, the Rod-Laver sneaker is 50 years old. I'd like something that has a little bit more comfort under foot. So let's do something that's modern that looks and that's why you see some of the retros. Let's modernize a retro, so let's give us the technology of 2026 with the look of a labor. Love it. Love it. Tim Nukum, thanks so much for joining us on Business Wars. It's been a real joy. My pleasure, David. I appreciate you having me on. Tim Nukum is a Business Reporter covering sneakers, sports apparel and tennis. You can check out his reporting in Forbes, Popular Mechanics, Time and Sports Illustrated. Next time on Business Wars, Spotify and Apple battle to dominate the $20 billion music streaming market. Follow Business Wars on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Business Wars ad-free by joining Audible. From Audible Originals, this is Episode 3 of Under Armors Attack on Nike for Business Wars. Our host David Brown, our senior interview producer is Peter Arcoony. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellowhand. Karen Lo is our producer emeritus. Engineering by Sergio Enriquez, our managing producer is Desi Blaylod. Kyle Randall is our lead sound designer. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer Beckman, head of Creative Development at Audible, Kate Naven, head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Louis. Chief Content Officer Rachel Guiazza, copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.