Please give your opinion or debate

This should be a fun one, I get to talk about my favorite Sports apparel company Under Armour. The Company started off a prototype of a moisture wicking shirt nicknamed "The Shorty" in 1996, has since become one of the most iconic sportswear brands in the world. Now working with some of the worlds biggest stars such as Stephen Curry and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, both athletes having their own sports lines. Under Armour to me was always so cool because they loved America, some of their clothes and shoes even incorporating the USA flag colors or design. The had one of the best catch lines to "WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!" always made me hype! So it really hurts to know that now the majority of there products are supplied and manufactured all over the world, only 11 places in the United States with each having less than 500 workers. Compare that to Vietnam which has 37 locations for manufacturing some with well over 5000+ workers!! Now I know this has become common ground with a lot of sportswear brands, the labor cost and goods are far cheaper than in the United States. However it does blow my mind that China, Vietnam and Indonesia all have much larger operations for a brand founded in the United States. I know that Under Armour is a brand well respected among Government Contractors and Military.

The supply chain struggles from Covid and Backed up ports also hit UA hard. The company's most recent earnings call in November, Under Armour Chief Financial Officer David Bergman said that supply chain backups have moved, so that by then "local ports of entry is where the bigger challenges are developing that we're monitoring (Unglesbee, 2021). So while UA has decided to push out a lot of their supply chain, they are now seeing the big problems that this can cause. Labor may be cheap, but something like Covid can come in a really clog things up... that's a port joke..

UA is at a crossroads currently, they have a market share of 3.5% while competitors are eating into that yearly. LuLulemon for example is now at 4.85%. Some of the problems UA has can defiantly be pinned down to a Supply Chain that could be more efficient. Time will tell if UA can regain their spot next to the big wigs like Nike or Adidas.