Under Armour'S Plan To Enter The Four Largest Alliance In North America Officially Has Been Postponed For One Year.

This is the first time an American brand has won the four largest professional alliance in North America.

The contract is not very simple for saving local performance.

Under Armour's desire to advance in the North American professional league ahead of schedule was shattered.

Originally scheduled for the 2019 season, the US brand will launch a sponsorship contract with the major league baseball MLB a year ahead of schedule. This is the first time that Under Armour has entered the four largest League in North America as an official official.

However, in April 17th, MLB announced that the plan would change, and the start date of the cooperation between the two sides would be postponed to 2020. This is the initial timetable for the agreement.

In this regard, MLB did not explain why the plan was postponed.

A spokesman for Under Armour also said, "we do not have anything to announce at the moment."

The sponsorship of the four major professional alliances in North America is considered to be a must for all major sports brands.

At NBA

After the defeat of Nike in October 2016, Under Armour finally welcomed the cooperation with the American professional sports league.

According to the original agreement, Under Armour has been the official supplier of MLB since 2020.

This is the first time that the brand has won the sponsorship contract of the four largest sports league in North America for 10 years, and the specific contract figures are unknown.

Apart from the fact that the hat is still provided by New Era, all the costumes will be covered by Under Armour.

It is worth noting that the new contract stipulates that the logo of sports brand sponsors will be pferred from the sleeves of the shirt to the front of the chest, and the exposure will be greatly improved.

At the same time, Under Armour is responsible for designing and producing jerseys for 30 teams, and the sales business is assigned to Fanatics, a partner sports retailer.

As a result, the two companies share the cost of contract and authorized sales revenue.

At present, MLB's equipment contract is jointly owned by Nike and Majestic, and the contract between the two sides will expire in 2019.

Among them, the Majestic signing time is 2005, is the league's exclusive jerseys sponsor.

Nike has been providing sports underwear for MLB since 2009, and the collars displayed by competitors' necklines are revealed by Nike's few brands in this event.

The latest agreement will end the years of cooperation between the alliance and Nike and Majestic.

In September 2017, for Under Armour, a good news emerged.

Fanatics spent $225 million to acquire VF Corporation's sports licensing group, which owns MLB's current Jersey sponsor Majestic.

After the deal was reached, MLB decided that the Under Armour Jersey had been advanced from 2020 to 2019, but now the US brand is happy.

Under Armour naturally wants to fight for the baseball field as early as possible.

The latest quarterly results show that sales of Under Armour in the North American home market dropped by 4% over the same period last year, and the core market accounted for 77% of the total sales.

Entering the core area of the North American professional alliance is undoubtedly an important marketing tool for brand self-help.

At the same time, MLB's business value is considerable.

According to the data released by Forbes in early April, the MLB alliance has increased by 7 percentage points over the past year.

Take the 2016 season as an example, the alliance's sponsorship income reached US $800 million, the four largest League after NFL.

MLB's bosses are sitting on Jinshan, benefiting from rising TV and business receipts.

Among them, New York Yankee's market value reached 4 billion U.S. dollars, the 21 consecutive year topped the list of MLB - Forbes said that only two professional clubs in the world have a market value of 4 billion dollars, and the other is the American Professional Football League NFL Dallas cowboy.

In addition to Under Armour's desire to gain marketing revenue from the MLB Jersey contract, the League also intends to upgrade its youthful image by abandoning the old supplier Majestic of the old contract.

According to the data released by Sports Business Journal in 2017, the average age of MLB fans is 57 years old, and the "four Champions League" is the four largest League. The average age of NFL fans is 50 years old, and NHL and NBA are 49 and 42 years old respectively.

"The league has been trying to grow younger and grow their fan base," said Bratman, former vice-chairman of Baltimore golden Orioles. "For the millennial generation, Under Armour has a very young image, and Majestic, like former sponsors, does not have such a high brand awareness." Brightman

However, according to the current situation, the cooperation between Under Armour and MLB will have to wait another year.

At present, among the four major North American alliances,

Nike controls NBA and NFL's jersey contracts, and Adidas owns NHL's sponsorship rights.