Report: Notre Dame's Contract With Under Armour Set to Expire After Next Season
One of college football's most valuable brands could be looking for a new apparel sponsor in 2024.
Notre Dame's exclusive negotiating window with Under Armour has expired, per Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger.
The Fighting Irish inked a 10-year deal worth roughly $90 million in cash and merchandise with the Under Armour in 2014. Under Armour, Nike and Adidas are expected to put in bids when that contract expires after next season, Dellenger reported.
At the time of the original contract, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told ESPN the school had the option to be paid partly in Under Armour stock.
In 2014, that stock reached about five times what it sells for now. As the brand's stock value and retail sales dipped, it looked to reduce overhead by cutting apparel deals with college athletics programs.
Under Armour went from having $1.36 billion tied to sponsorship commitments in 2017 to just $288 million, most of which are set to expire in 2024, by 2022, per Brendan Coffey of Sportico.
Some of those cut deals burned bridges with schools such as UCLA, which sued Under Armour in 2020 by alleging the brand had broken the sponsorship deal early because it had become too expensive for the company to maintain.
It may be true that apparel sponsorship deals generally benefit schools more than they do brands. According to Sportico's Jonathan A. Jensen, athletic programs earn an average of $2.9 million in the first year after an apparel switch, while many brands saw their stock price drop in the days after the deal was announced.
Despite this market uncertainty for apparel companies, a program as well-known as the Fighting Irish's will have no difficulty finding a new sponsor.
The only question is if that deal will be with Under Armour, which appears to be distancing itself from the world of college athletics, or if—because apparel sponsorships often involve the school receiving royalties from merchandise sales—Notre Dame will look to get the influx of cash from all-new merch produced by a company such as Nike or Adidas.
