Kevin Plank and the Rise of Under Armour

While Under Armour might not be the biggest name in athletic apparel, the story of the company's founding and its CEO is inspiring. Kevin Plank, a former University of Maryland football player, founded the company on a simple yet brilliant idea: a moisture-wicking synthetic fabric T-shirt that could help athletes perform better by remaining cool, dry, and light. What started as a mission to produce “the world's best undershirt” has since turned into a global brand with a broad product portfolio and popularity with both professional athletes and amateur fitness enthusiasts. Join us as we tell the story of Kevin Plank and Under Armour, all the way from the company’s founding to where they are today.

• Kevin Plank's story: An overview of Plank's journey from high school to how his time playing college football laid the foundation for Under Armour.

• Under Armour's founding: the story behind the founding of the company, and how Plank developed and sold the first batch of products.

• Skilled entrepreneurship: Examples of how entrepreneurial spirit, combined with great products, was the cornerstone of the company's success.

• The journey: We dive into the growth story of Under Armour, highlighting both commercial successes and mistakes.

Kevin Plank, was born on August 13, 1972, in Kensington, Maryland, and grew up playing football. His time in high school wasn't all smooth sailing, and he switched schools after poor academic performance and problematic behavior. After graduating, he attended a military boarding school and played on the school's football team, trying to garner the attention of large Division 1 universities. However this was without success, and he received no offers.

Undeterred, Plank enrolled at the University of Maryland and walked onto the football team. During his time at university, he became captain of the special teams, and while he enjoyed his time on the field, it also generated a business idea that would go on to change his life forever. According to Plank himself, he was “the sweatiest guy on the team” and was often frustrated with how often he had to change T-shirts in order to stay comfortable during practice and games. While his cotton shirts were always soaked and became unbearably warm every single time he took the field, he noticed that his compression shorts always remained dry. This is where he got the idea he would found Under Armour on.

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in business administration, Plank went straight to work. Straight out of college and without an actual product to sell, he was in need of a laboratory of sorts where he could get to work on different prototypes. Luckily, his grandmother was more than happy to offer up her basement for Plank to use and he quickly got to work on developing the perfect athletic T-shirt.

While still attending university, he ran a seasonal business called Cupids Valentine. As suggested by the name, he sold roses on campus and the surrounding area on Valentine's Day. While this didn't make him a fortune, he used the $3.000 he had made combined with some of his own money and a small business loan to start sourcing materials for his first prototypes. Operating out of his grandmother's basement, he spent his time researching different materials and after plenty of trial and error he eventually created the first prototype of what would become Under Armour's signature product. After graduating from college, he traveled up and down the East Coast, selling his innovative T-shirts out of the trunk of his car. He also sent shirts to his former teammates on the Maryland University football team as well as some who had gone on to play professionally to generate feedback. After some more iterations of the prototype, he constructed a T-shirt using microfibers that wicked sweat and moisture away from the body, allowing athletes to stay cool and light. The initial response was overwhelmingly positive, setting the stage for Under Armour's rapid growth.

Under Armour quickly expanded beyond the original T-shirt. By the end of 1996, Plank made his first team sale, and Under Armour generated $17,000 in sales. Going into the following year, Plank and his young company had orders coming in from college teams all over the country and he found a factory in Ohio where he could manufacture his shirts. In 1997 he had orders for roughly $100.000 worth of merchandise from teams all over the country, and the business was beginning to take off in earnest.

While the company was growing organically, Plank was getting ready to make a big bet in order to get more exposure for the brand. Looking back at his next move it appears very risky, but at the time that notion would have looked even more extreme. In 1999, Plank had an idea to help generate both buzz and sales for Under Armour: he was going to take out an ad in ESPN magazine. So far this sounds fairly uncontroversial, but there was a catch: the 25.000 the ad would cost was just about all the money that the company had. Employees agreed to go without pay for a couple of weeks in order for Plank to be able to collect the needed cash, and he went to ESPN (the sports network is today majority owned by Disney) and took out the ad.

Luckily, the bet paid off massively and the year following the ad in ESPN the company generated roughly $1 million in sales. The ad resulted in Under Armour generating a massive amount of buzz surrounding its product, combined with the fact that athletes loved the product and were more than likely to promote it to friends and teammates through word of mouth meant that Under Armour now had the cash and traction it needed to start expanding even further.

Having now firmly cemented themselves, and with the cash and product portfolio needed to make a big push for growth, Plank and Under Armour got to work. Sports teams at all levels were now starting to take a serious interest in the company's apparel, and Under Armour was selling more and more products for every year that passed. Due to the success of the athletic T-shirts, Plank and his team were able to develop and release new products with the same focus: keeping athletes comfortable and able to perform at their best. During this time Under Armour was also becoming more popular with everyday fitness enthusiasts as well, helping the company to diversify its revenue streams away from predominantly selling to entire teams. This also marked the point where the company seriously started to compete against companies such as Nike and Adidas, something which it continues to do today.

The company conducted its IPO in 2005, and the following year the company moved into footwear. This proved to be a wise business decision, and in the following years shoes and cleats were Under Armour's quickest-growing category, with a wide array of products for sports such as golf, football, baseball, basketball, and much more. While the expansion into footwear proved to be a wise decision, not all ventures undertaken under Plank's initiative proved to be commercially successful. Under Armour invested heavily in digital health, acquiring several fitness app companies such as MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal for roughly $500 million in total. This is something that failed to show the positive impact that Plank had hoped, and the company has divested most of its digital health holdings.

However, the mid to late 2010s brought some strategic missteps, including the move into digital health, and market challenges that slowed the company's growth. A failure to fully capitalize on the popular athleisure trend in the same way that companies like Puma and LuluLemon managed, combined with increased competition and a rapidly changing retail landscape required a strategic rethink. Facing these challenges, Under Armour refocused its efforts on innovation and direct-to-consumer sales while scaling back on less profitable ventures. Kevin Plank stepped down as CEO in 2019, moving to the role of Executive Chairman and Brand Chief to focus more on product development and brand story.

In the years following Plank's departure from the role of CEO, the company has struggled. Two different people have taken the helm at Under Armour, but have been unable to fully turn the ship around and point in the right direction. Plank returned as the CEO on April 1, 2024, and at the time of the writing of this article, he has been back at the helm for a little over a month. Time will tell whether or not his return is going to give Under Armour the boost it needs to start seriously competing against the likes of Adidas and Nike again.

Under Kevin Plank's leadership, Under Armour grew from a basement startup to a global brand, making a name for itself in a notoriously competitive sector. His story is the perfect example of how having a great product perfectly tailored for one's target audience combined with industry know-how and managed risk can be a recipe for success. While Under Armour still has ways to go before competing in earnest with the true behemoths of the industry, the company's equipment and apparel continue to be the first choice for many athletes due to the qualities of the products.