News broke last week that Under Armour is trying to break out of its 15-year, $280 Million deal with UCLA, along with a handful of similar contracts. It’s big news for a few reasons.
First, there’s the implication that Under Armour is struggling financially—a development that, allowed to continue to finality, will leave millions of youth athletes cold on the field from October through May.
Second, there’s the reality that UCLA isn’t the program it once was. And it’s certainly not the program Under Armour signed up to clothe.
In the summer of 2016, when I’m under the impression Under Armour signed UCLA to this lucrative textile deal, the executives back in Baltimore were no doubt convinced UCLA was bound for postseason greatness in the years ahead. The Bruins were coming off of a 15-17 campaign, and they still had two years of the Bryce Alford era if Papa Steve could avoid getting fired for that long. The highway signs said NIT. Under Armour called shotgun.
Four years later?
No NIT’s.
Now, to be fair, the argument can be made that UCLA should have made it in 2018. And this year, barring a conference championship in Vegas or the other tournament’s selection committee neglecting to look at Mick Cronin’s team’s résumé, they would have been NIT-bound for sure.
Still, four years.
No NIT’s.
Meanwhile, other Under Armour programs have earned an overall NIT number one seed (Notre Dame, 2018), consistent preseason NIT hype (Maryland, 2019 et al.), perennial NIT/CBI bubble drama (South Carolina, 2018, 2019), a Virtual NIT title (Texas Tech, 2020), and a near-victory over the most dominant NITeam in recent memory (Temple almost beat Penn State in ’18), to name just a few accomplishments.
The message is clear.
In the Under Armour universe, you either put up NIT success, or you take off your clothes.
UCLA’s gotta take off the clothes now.
