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MLB, Under Armour ring opening bell at NYSE
- Updated: December 7, 2016
NEW YORK — Kevin Plank has a sign on a whiteboard back at his Under Armour headquarters in Baltimore that reads: “Makes big bets with big partners.” On Wednesday morning at the New York Stock Exchange, it was as big as the big leagues.
The Under Armour founder and CEO rang the opening bell there along with Commissioner Rob Manfred, Yankees rookie outfielder and UA athlete Aaron Judge, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and others involved with the just-announced 10-year deal that will make that global performance brand the official uniform provider for Major League Baseball starting in 2020.
• Under Armour, Fanatics, MLB strike uniform deal
“The word that comes to my mind is energy,” Manfred said of the NYSE bell-ringing event. “It’s one of the reasons we got into the partnership with Under Armour. We think it’s a young brand, an energetic brand, and we think it’s going to be great for the game.”
As for the response so far within the industry, Manfred said, “Unbelievably positive. Players in particular. Under Armour has relationships with 400 players, and obviously those players are all-in on this deal.”
Under Armour is a well-established partner of MLB, dating back to 2000 as an official base-layer supplier. The brand took the field with its first baseball cleat collection in 2006 and became the official performance footwear partner of MLB in 2011.
“We are taking a massive swing — forgive the pun — with this one,” Plank said of Under Armour’s first such deal with a major North American pro sports league. “And it really, really is defining not only of the first 20 years of history that we’ve had, our first 11 as a public company, but really the company that we’re going to be.
“Our job, part of the ambition we have for this deal — and part of what you’ve seen in Commissioner Manfred driving and getting this to happen — is taking this game global and what that means. The best way for us to take this game global is truly finding a way for …
