Under Armour continues its inroads into global football and rugby in the U.K. It has signed a new 7-year contract with the Southampton Football Club as well as a three-year partnership with an English Rugby Union club, the Worcester Warriors.
Both partnerships start with the 2016/17 playing season. Southampton FC, which plays in the English Premier League, is currently being sponsored by Adidas. Southampton, which is currently in 7th place in the English Premiership, had an on-and-off relationship with the Three Stripes, which terminated its contract in 2013 and then resumed it for the 2015/16 season.
As part of its deal with Southampton FC, UA will undertake several collateral actions including the promotion of women's football and the supply of kits to more than 5,000 children in the local community through the Saints Foundation.
The Warriors, who compete in England's Aviva Premiership, are being kitted out by Kooga. UA's contract with the club also covers training wear and match day kit for both the main and junior teams.
UA is already the sponsor of the Welsh Rugby Union and of a major English football team, the Tottenham Hotspur. However, as reported recently, Nike is apparently trying to take over the Tottenham deal, which expires with the end of the 2016/17 season, offering three times the amount being paid by UA (SGI Europe Vol. 27 – n° 9-10 of March 14).
In Germany, UA will be sponsoring FC St. Pauli, a second-division team in Hamburg, from next July, as previously reported. UA has now announced the sponsorship of Jonathan Tah as its new brand testimonial. The 20-year-old striker plays for the Bayer 04 Leverkusen football team and is rated to be one of the shooting stars in the German football scene. He played for the first time in the German national team a few weeks ago, when Germany staged a test game against England.
Tah is the first German footballer in UA's portfolio. He will be representing the brand together with a Swiss national player, Granit Xhaka, at the European Championship in France this summer. UA plans to have a portfolio of 10-30 football players in Germany and the rest of Europe acting as brand testimonials.
Meanwhile, UA has signed an unusual contract that gives the brand visibility in the very different world of horseracing. The brand will supply a special riding jacket using its own technology for the jockeys of Team Godolphin, who compete in many horse races around the world. It will also outfit their trainers, for a total of 1,500 team members. Founded by a ruler of Dubai, Godolphin is described as the most international horseracing operation in the world, It has its own jockeys, trainers and thoroughbred breeding and horseracing stables in the U.K. and Australia.
