Hawaii Warriors Ink Deal to Better Protect This House

The University of Hawaii has had four different outfitters in the last 14 or so years. It seems that, finally, UH has a good offer.

The school announced on Feb. 25 that Under Armour had signed an eight-year deal including apparel, footwear, and marketing with UH that will provide the university with over $4.1 million in cash and trade. 

Over the course of the next eight years, the football team, coaches, and staff will be provided with over $2.4 million in product. 

So it's just a uniform, right? Not at all. This partnership is huge for the athletics department because of everything else they will be receiving. 

Under Armour is paying UH $1.68 million in cash, including $1.14 million in rights fees, and they will provide a minimum of $540,000 in marketing support as a member of the UH Corporate Partner Program. 

So they get this huge deal with Under Armour being only the fifth college football team UA outfits, including Auburn, South Carolina, Texas Tech, and Maryland. 

But on to the uniform! No longer will the white, black, and silver colors be on the road. UH is going back to white and green while traveling as it represents Hawaii more. The tattoo pattern is gone from the leg and there will be a single pipe going down the side on both legs. Both sleeves will now have a "kapa" pattern, which represents the old warrior ways. The most notable change is that uniforms will have "HAWAII" going across the chest again as a way to show people who the team is. An identity marker if you will. 

The white uniforms will be worn on August 30 for the opener against Florida, and the black home uniforms will make their debut on September 6 versus Weber State. There is also talk of an all-green uniform for future homecoming games, and even possibly throwback uniforms in the years to come.

When Fred vonAppen was coach, Russell Athletics was the outfitter and delivered what it could. June Jones arrived in Manoa in 1999 and got a deal inked up with Reebok and changed the whole design of the uniform.

Dropping the rainbow-piped pants and plain jersey just reading "HAWAII," Jones changed it up to be more fierce, making jersey color a darker green with black cuffs and a collar. The design also got a tattoo pattern on the left sleeve of the jersey, and the numbers underwent a makeover with a Hawaiian style feel to them. The pants were black with the same tattoo pattern on the left leg. A year later, it was updated to have the leg pattern be bigger. 

In 2005, UH left Reebok for a lucrative deal with Nike, a new outfitter for the team as well as high-level sponsor. They kept the uniform relatively the same with the exception of making the word "WARRIORS" bigger on the front of the jersey above the numbers. After three years, Nike tried renegotiating, but claimed they would only continue to outfit the team if all of UH athletics agreed to go Nike. However, there are some teams that just won't leave their sponsorships, like the Men's and Women's volleyball teams' agreement with Asics.