It was announced yesterday that Nike would become the official uniform and on-court apparel sponsor for the NBA starting in the 2017-18 season. This was big news and was met with a positive reaction from sneaker people who had grown tired of adidas' involvement in basketball. The move by Nike had a lot of implications for brands other than Nike or adidas, too — Under Armour has been trying to become more involved with the NBA, and, according to Baltimore Business Journal, Nike's sponsorship could cause trouble for UA.
One of the biggest takeaways from Nike's NBA contract is that its Swoosh logo will be present on the league's jerseys. (adidas currently does not have a visible Three Stripes logo on any of the uniforms.)
According to the report, "Not only will the on-court jerseys give Nike more visibility in a sport where it already dominates market share, but it also means Under Armour's NBA athletes, including 2015 MVP Stephen Curry, will be sporting a Nike logo on their jerseys."
Under Armour's Curry One has been a big sneaker for the Maryland-based footwear brand, but having a Swoosh across Curry's chest could cause advertising nightmares for a company trying to infiltrate Nike's 90 percent basketball market share.
“We believe one of Nike's core strategies is to drive global athletic endorsement inflation over the [long term] — making it even more difficult for new competitors to enter the endorsement game,” said Michael Binetti, a sportswear analyst for UBS Investment.
But not everyone think it's going to be a big deal. Matt Powell, analyst for NPD Group, who has notoriously battled against brands spending money for endorsements, said, "I don’t think it has much of an impact directly to sales. I think that this is a marketing play and while I think Under Armour would have liked to have a marketing play, to spend a billion dollars in marketing to get a billion dollars in business — the math doesn’t work on that."
Until Nike actually takes over in a few years, all of this is mere speculation.
