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RebelRobert

Under Armour wants to terminate $280 million deal with UCLA

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https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2020-06-27/under-amour-informs-ucla-it-wants-to-terminate-deal-with-school

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Under Armour has informed UCLA that it wants to terminate the record-setting $280-million deal the apparel giant signed with the school in 2016, a potentially financially crippling move that the Bruins intend to fight.

In a letter to UCLA constituents, outgoing athletic director Dan Guerrero wrote that “we are exploring all of our options to resist Under Armour’s actions and will share more information as we can. We want to reassure you that UCLA Athletics remains committed to providing our hard-working staff and student-athletes with the footwear, apparel and equipment needed to train and compete at the highest level.”

Any loss of revenue would be doubly devastating to a UCLA athletic department already facing a massive budget deficit even before the pandemic led to the cancellation of spring sports and endangered the fall sports calendar. The department took on an interest-bearing loan from the university to cover an $18.9-million shortfall for the 2019 fiscal year and is expected to go further into the red in 2020.

Under Armour agreed to a 15-year contract with UCLA in 2016 that was the richest shoe and apparel sponsorship in college sports history, replacing a deal the Bruins previously held with Adidas that expired in the summer of 2017. The deal gave Under Armour a flagship program on the West Coast while providing UCLA with a massive infusion of cash and athletic apparel.

As part of the agreement, Under Armour paid UCLA $15 million up front in addition to roughly $11 million per year in rights and marketing fees. The apparel company also agreed to supply the school with an average of $7.4 million in clothing, shoes and equipment each school year while contributing $2 million over an eight-year span toward athletic facility upgrades.

Should UCLA and Under Armour part ways, the school would seek a new apparel deal, presumably with one of the other major players in sportswear. UCLA had fielded offers from Nike and Adidas before picking Under Armour four years ago.

New UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond is familiar with Under Armour, having worked with the apparel company as part of its sponsorship of Boston College’s athletic teams when he was the Eagles athletic director. Jarmond teamed with the company to produce the Martin Jarmond Collection of Boston College-themed sportswear.

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More than likely, a negotiating ploy.  UA was struggling even before the pandemic.  And the new AD has worked with UA before.

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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9 minutes ago, soupslam1 said:

How do you some of these P5 schools go into debt with their $30-40M TV contracts and massive sports uniform/equipment deals while us G5 peons stay afloat on our $3M contracts? 

Incompetent leadership, arrogance, impractical expenditures, unneeded olympic sports that make no money, inflated contracts for losers, renting instead of owning, horrible fans, alumni with exaggerated self opinions of grandeuer pompous aholes.  I don't believe in P5 or G5 by the way and I think it does a disservice to schools to assume a label which doesn't exist.

 

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On 6/27/2020 at 12:18 PM, RSF said:

More than likely, a negotiating ploy.  UA was struggling even before the pandemic.  And the new AD has worked with UA before.

May be more than a negotiating ploy.  Add Cal, Navy and BC to the list of schools they would like to cut.  This is about UA in trouble.

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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On 6/27/2020 at 12:07 PM, soupslam1 said:

How do you some of these P5 schools go into debt with their $30-40M TV contracts and massive sports uniform/equipment deals while us G5 peons stay afloat on our $3M contracts? 

Because they find places to waste it like tvs in the floor so that they can go ask for more

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On 6/27/2020 at 12:07 PM, soupslam1 said:

How do you some of these P5 schools go into debt with their $30-40M TV contracts and massive sports uniform/equipment deals while us G5 peons stay afloat on our $3M contracts? 

In the case of UCLA:

1. By listening to people like Bill Walton tell them how important it is to win the most Director's Cup titles in the so-called Conference of Champions in sports which don't earn diddly squat and therefore not sufficiently emphasizing what used to earn them a shit ton of money: men's basketball.

2. By hiring incompetent athletic directors like Dan Guerrero who wouldn't know a good football head coach hire opportunity if it hit him in the head with a 2X4 while screaming "I'm young, ambitious as hell and have a family to feed!"

3. By emulating San Jose State and having a disproportionate percentage of students be from Asia who therefore never followed football and so don't care a whit about that potentially big moneymaker while they're in school nor will they care about it after they graduate.

I'm sure there are other reasons but from what I can tell as someone who lives only about 15 miles from their campus, those are the foremost ones.

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