Under Armour has designs on new look
The image making its way around the Internet of a gigantic blue and gold flag suspended from the Golden Gate Bridge and buckling in the wind is merely a gif.
But it’s conceivable that the creative teams at Cal and Under Armour could have figured out a way to pull off such an impressive gesture, considering everything that has unfolded during this week’s launch of the new agreement between the university and the company.
Cal and Under Armour teamed up to present athletics clinics, big-ticket giveaways and high-quality videos in a promotional series that had the campus buzzing about the school’s rebranded logos and hinted at the partnership’s potential assistance to the financially strapped program.
“Through truly collaborative efforts, we are working together to create exclusive designs that will both reinforce and build upon the Cal brand,” Cal athletic director Mike Williams said in a news release. “Our relationship, though, encompasses so much more, offering unique opportunities for students through a shared vision of innovation, research and entrepreneurship.”
A “transitional bonus” from Under Armour is helping the school pay for resurfacing projects at Haas Pavilion and Memorial Stadium that are expected to be completed this weekend, according to university officials. They also said Kabam paid nearly $5 million to buy out of the remainder of a 15-year, $18 million namingrights agreement for the Memorial Stadium playing field reached in 2013.
Having lost about $22 million last year and facing the debt of at least $400 million promised in the retrofit of Memorial Stadium, the Cal athletics program is in extreme distress. But the new deal with Under Armour and two contracts with Learfield that are supposed to take effect next month are projected to provide about $8 million more annually than the school’s previous contracts in apparel, multimedia and licensing.
The agreement with Under Armour was initially announced in April 2016 and will include a campus-wide push that includes the university’s recreational clubs and the band. Under Armour will also outfit the sports teams from school’s entire athletics department.
The designs of the new uniforms will be released in the coming months, but Cal and Under Armour started riling up anticipation this week by debuting several new logos. The Cal script will remain the primary logo, but the partners introduced some alternate options that have Bears fans clamoring.
There’s one that brings back the block C and adds a newly designed Bear in the middle, others that add the use of California and Golden Bears to the customary Cal script, and one that introduces the “Sather Stripe.”
The Sather Tower, more commonly known as the Campanile, acted as the muse for a series of vertical lines that will appear on all of Cal’s uniforms.
“I’ve been around a lot of campuses, and there are few that have icons that really stand out and are special and unique,” Under Armour senior creative director Adam Clement said in a statement. “There’s the Golden Dome at Notre Dame, the Duke University Chapel and the Campanile at Berkeley.
With “the way it stands above the entire campus, and the shot from Memorial Stadium looking down — you basically see the Campanile and the Golden Gate Bridge. From a scenic perspective, it’s one of a kind. You can’t get that anywhere else.”