US Sports Apparel Brand Under Armour Wins Big With Jordan Spieth Sponsorship

What's the best advertisement ever? It's an athlete winning a coveted title while donning your clothing brand from head to toe.

Thanks to Jordan Spieth's Masters win over the weekend, Under Armour enjoyed tremendous broadcast exposure on ESPN and CBS that's worth an eyebrow-raising US$33.6 million [$43.2 million], said Detroit-based sports sponsorship analytics expert Eric Smallwood to The Baltimore Business Journal. Smallwood also noted that Spieth's value to the brand was record-breaking; in 2013, Tiger Woods only got US$19.6 million in exposure for Nike.

“Thanks to Jordan, our company grew up today,” Under Armour founder and chief executive Kevin Plank told ESPN, according to a report on Arab News. “This is a global event and he’s the leading trending athlete in the world right now.”

Seeking Alpha said that the exposure figures were tied to the tournament's ratings, which went through the roof this year. According to an article on the site viewership last Saturday, the tournament's third round had a total of 8.9 million viewers, up by 45 percent since 2011. On Sunday, 17.7 million viewers tuned it to watch the tournament at around 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

One expert maintained, however, that Spieth's win is still not measurable as of yet in terms of sales for Under Armour. In a report by USA TODAY Sports, Marketing Arm senior vice president of sports Mary O'Connor noted that how Spieth's triumph correlates to Under Armour's revenues is not clear at this point, but what is certain is that it has widened the brand's reach.

"What's not quantifiable is the instantaneous brand elevation that occurred," O'Connor told USA TODAY Sports. "The apparel they had on him is mainstream apparel, and it's a whole new marketing and sales platform available to the general public."

Under Armour's sales reached US$3.08 billion in 2014, closely following Nike, according to The Boston Globe. The company's shares were up by 66 percent.

It really helps when a celebrity of any kind wears a brand. For instance, in the men's underwear department, relatively unknown underwear brand Naked Brand Group, Inc. shot to popularity due to an unsolicited advertisement from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The Canadian luxury underwear brand supplied the movie's production team over 70 pairs of underwear for Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man), and Jamie Foxx (Electro).

“They actually went to Nordstrom and checked out everything on the floor and ours was the only one that worked,” Naked company founder and president Joel Primus told The Star in a report last year. The report added that the brand has raked in US$650,000 in sales in 2013.

Arab News revealed that Spieth won US$1.8 million for the Augusta National Golf Club annual tournament. The news outlet added that the 21-year-old Dallas native was the second-youngest golfer to have won the title at the Masters, after Tiger Woods in 1997.

According to a separate report from The Daily Telegraph, Spieth will return to Australia to defend his Australian Open title in November. “I fully plan on making the trip back to Australia. It was a special week for me and obviously did a lot for my career. Without it, I may not be here right now,” Spieth said.

To contact the writer, email a.lu@ibtimes.com.au.