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Lenny Ignelzi
Baby I Got Your Money

Under Armour has become one of sport's biggest players - and it's mainly down to these 3 athletes

Sportswear giant reported a 29% growth in revenue last year.

UNDER ARMOUR CONTINUES to grow at a wild pace.

On Thursday the company reported a 29% growth in revenues over the same period last year, leading to a 7.3% jump in the company’s stock price.

This incredible growth has CEO Kevin Plank excited, and in a conference call about the earnings, he thanked three huge contributors who don’t even work for the company.

The biggest growth categories for Under Armour recently have been in three areas: golf-related items, women’s products, and basketball shoes and apparel. Not incidently, these correlate with the subjects of Plank’s praise: Jordan Spieth, Misty Copeland and Stephen Curry.

Over the past year, three Under Armour athletes have transcended their sports and become known by just their first names, Stephen, Misty and Jordan. These three athletes have combined to teach us one incredibly valuable lesson: that we need to think bigger,” said Land.

One of Under Armour’s recent initiatives has been in basketball apparel and especially shoes. Land said that Curry is driving this section of the business faster than expected.

This brand heat is driving huge amounts of incremental traffic to our ecommerce platform across the globe with our basketball traffic up more than 300% year-over-year,” said Land.

Misty Copeland is one of America's top ballet dancers. Businessinsider Businessinsider

The basketball shoe business is dominated by Nike, with brands affiliated with Michael Jordan and LeBron James drawing massive revenues.

But Under Armour is capitalizing on Curry’s success in the NBA Finals with the Curry One shoe.

The Curry One Shoe was a great success with our ecommerce site as we continue to gain share in key footwear categories with our wholesale partners,” said Plank. 

Revenue for the footwear business increased 40% compared to the same quarter last year to $154 million.

Copeland, who was recently named as the first black woman to be the principal ballerina at prestigious American Ballet Theatre, drove an increase in sales of woman’s apparel.

Our women’s business continues to grow strongly in key areas like caprice, shorts, sports bra and running footwear,” said Land. Exact numbers were not provided.

The final athlete, Spieth, won his first two major championships at the Masters and US Open, while he came close to winning his third last week at the Open Championship in Scotland. Land put it this way in the call:

“In just a sport of golf in the last two years our revenues have more than doubled. We’re seeing key category growth throughout the rest of the year — things like on our Web site — our playoff polos are a number one item at our Brand House and our ecommerce site. The business is basically up everywhere, where we have our key assets which is the one thing which led us the ability to find the right asset with Jordan, that we’re leading the way out there it’s been absolute killing home run for us too.”

Just last year, Under Armour passed Adidas as the second-largest sportswear company in the world and the company has continued to grow globally.

In the long run, it seems to be trying to leverage its three huge superstars into taking on the behemoth in the industry, Nike.

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