It all started with a simple plan to make a superior T-shirt.

As special teams captain during the mid-1990s for the University of Maryland football team, Kevin Plank hated having to repeatedly change the cotton T-shirt he wore under his jersey as it became wet and heavy during the course of a game.67 He knew there had to be a better alternative and set out to make it. After a year of fabric and product testing, Plank introduced the first Under Armour compression product—a synthetic shirt worn like a second skin under a uniform or jersey. And it was an immediate hit! The silky fabric was light and made athletes feel faster and fresher, giving them, according to Plank, an important psychological edge. Today,

Under Armour continues to passionately strive to make all athletes better by relentlessly pursuing innovation and design. A telling sign of the company’s philosophy is found over the door of its product design studios: “We have not yet built our defining product.”

Today, Baltimore-based Under Armour (UA) is a $5 billion company. In 22 years, it has grown from a college startup to a “formidable competitor of the Beaverton, Oregon, behemoth” (better known as Nike, a $34.4 billion company). In the fragmented U.S. sports apparel market, UA sells products from shirts, shorts, and footwear to underwear, wearable fitness technology, and hats. In addition, more than 100 universities wear UA uniforms. The company’s logo—an interlocking U and A—is becoming almost as recognizable as the Nike swoosh.

Starting out, Plank sold his shirts using the only advantage he had—his athletic connections. Drawing on his own personal team experiences, “he knew at least 40 NFL players well enough to call and offer them the shirt.” He was soon joined by another Maryland player, Kip Fulks, who played lacrosse. Fulks used the same relationship-based “six-degrees strategy” in the lacrosse world.

Believe it or not, the strategy worked. UA sales quickly gained momentum. However, selling products to teams and schools would take a business only so far. That’s when Plank began to look at the mass market. In 2000, he made his first deal with a big-box store, Galyan’s (which was eventually bought by Dick’s Sporting Goods). Today, more than 66 percent of UA’s sales come from wholesaling to retailers such as Dick’s. But UA hasn’t forgotten where it started, either. The company has all-school deals with a number of Division 1 schools. Although that doesn’t seem like a lot of revenue, such deals do give the company brand identity.

Despite its marketing successes, innovation continues to be the name of the game at UA. How important is innovation to the company’s heart and soul? Consider what you have to do to enter its new products lab. “Place your hands inside a state-of-the-art scanner that reads—and calculates—the exact pattern of the veins on the back. If it recognizes the pattern—which it does for only 20 employees—you’re in. If it doesn’t, the vault-like door won’t budge.” In the unmarked lab at the company’s headquarters campus in Baltimore, products being developed include a shirt that can monitor an athlete’s heart rate, a running shoe designed like your spine, and a sweatshirt that repels water almost as well as a duck. There’s also work being done on a shirt that may help air condition your body by reading your vital signs.

Despite its innovation push, Under Armour has suffered recent revenue declines. The year 2017 was a rough one for the company. CEO Kevin Plank said that the company would step up restructuring efforts. Three top executives were let go as was roughly 2 percent of its workforce.68 Also, the company was looking at ways to connect better with its female customers. Finally, the company admitted that it had suffered “operational challenges” when trying to implement an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. The implementation problems were so severe that the company’s financial outlook was affected.70 So what’s next for Under Armour? With a motto that refers to protecting this house, innovation will continue to be important.

Building a business beyond what it’s known for—that is, what athletes wear next to their skin—is going to be challenging. However,

Plank is completely devoted to Under Armour’s focus on finding ways to use technology in all the company’s products to make athletes better. He says, “There’s not a product we can’t build.”

Discussion Questions 

1. What do you think of UA’s approach to innovation? Would you expect to see this type of innovation in an athletic wear company? Explain.

2. What do you think UA’s culture might be like in regards to innovation?

3. How might design thinking help UA improve its innovation efforts?

4. What’s your interpretation of the company’s philosophy posted prominently over the door of its design studio? What does it say about innovation? Make a list of lessons that managers could learn from UA’s innovation approach that you could share with real managers.