Now taking the stage, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Treasury, and Corporate Development, Lance Allega.
Woo! Come on, guys. One more! Energy today, right? Thank you. It's good to see you. Thank you for being here. Good morning, New York. Welcome to Under Armour's Fiscal 2025 Investor Meeting. Setting some color today. You'll see from each of us. I'll start with my why. So why am I here? For me, it's about this logo, right, and what it represents as a flag and as a mark, and really what it means when you see it, when you run it yourself, when you see it on the street. Our business is not just about shirts and shoes. It's about dreams, inspiration, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible physically and mentally in this incredible world of sports and athletic performance.
As I finish my eighth year here at Under Armour, the power and potential of this logo and this brand are sharper and brighter than I've ever known it to be. Today, we look forward to providing a qualitative - qualitative, guys. I've said that, all right - an overview of our product brand strategies and commercial strategies, and the key initiatives being executed to strengthen our ability to deliver improved value creation to shareholders over the long term. The day is divided into two sections, right? So the first section is a high-level brand strategy and overview by Kevin Plank, product with Yassine Saidi, Kyle Blakely and Yuron White, and then strategy and storytelling with Eric. And then we'll take a break after, sorry, product, and then a second section, which will include regional highlights from Jason Archer, Kara Trent, and Kevin Ross. All of this will be followed by a Q&A.
As a reminder, and I know all of you know this part well, this is our safe harbor, reminding everyone that today's presentation will include references to future state conditions that could differ materially from the views expressed today. Also, certain elements of today's presentation will contain conceptual prototypes and design ideas that may not yet be fully baked, so we'd ask that you don't take pictures. Thank you. With that, it's my honor to introduce our Founder, President, and CEO, Kevin Plank.
Now taking the stage, Founder, President, and CEO, Kevin Plank.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome here to Chelsea NYC. Let me have a handheld. Thank you. Hold that. Thank you. Perfect. All right, we're going to get started. We're going to do this in a very fast and happy way. Pull that up the back for me. Welcome to our investor meeting that we're happy to hold here in Chelsea, in this incredible, magical space. You're going to get the true sense of what it means to be brand by the time we're done. We're going to make sure that utilizing story as our backdrop. As Lance said, this is going to be a qualitative meeting, but we think there's a lot of meat that's in here because it has been just too long since we've been together. I'm thrilled to be with you today.
As a CEO of Under Armour, it's easy for me to say this word. I'm just happy. Now, just over eight months back in this chair, I stand here proudly representing the more than 16,000 global teammates that we have here at UA. And as I said, this is a global brand. And after our first 28 years, now stretch us to more than 140 countries that we have with +$5 billion in revenue, more than 2,000 single-banner UA retail stores around the world. And when I said it's been too long, it's been nearly six years, almost to the day, 2,189 days since we presented to you in a format like this, and talking to investors and telling our story. Well, today we get the chance to address that in a very clear and concise way.
And as I said, story is what's so ironic about not having talked to you. I think it's one of our greatest strengths. It's a place that we expect to lean into the most. And so today will be a holistic qualitative overview of the Under Armour business, the vision that we have of, number one, where we are, but more importantly, where we're going, including the very clear positioning of exactly who this brand is, the consumer that we stand for, and the team that's going to get us there, the leadership talent that we have around this business and this brand. I want you to meet our team. I want you to be able to look into the whites of the eyes and see and feel the energy of this brand of what we believe is possible.
And so I start that, and I want to kick with this slide, which is, to be very clear, that we're not just building a company. We're building a brand. And the reason for that is because brands are just so much more valuable than companies. We've actually had the chance to preview what we're going to show you today as we've been out around the world and talking to our partners, our vendors, our agencies, our customers, and showing them about what you're going to see here and this broader sense that there's actually this new day that's happening at Under Armour. And you can feel it in the hallways, and it's hard to explain. But a part of that is that, dare I say, that idea of momentum.
To be clear, when we started in April, there was a lot to do, but I'm proud of what we have accomplished. We've identified there's 100 things for us to fix. Of those 100, probably 75 of them are self-inflicted. The good news about that means that we can control them. We can touch them, and we can actually make a difference with them pretty immediately. While we haven't gotten to all of them, we've made progress. Probably even more importantly is that there's more than 1,000 things going for us. Today we're going to provide a pretty good balance of each. Let me. I've titled this day, you know, Building a Brand, of what it means to be brand.
Because getting back to that fundamental ambition that we have of Under Armour, providing you with performance solutions that you never knew you needed, things like a T-shirt for athletes, and then once you tried them, wondered how you could have ever lived without them. That is the vision of what this brand is. So yes, we are building a brand. But I wanted to start maybe a little more personal because you can't have a brand unless you have two very critical things. And number one is the name, of course, but our name is almost descriptive, but explained at least for that first product. But more importantly, the logo. The logo matters. The logo defines and describes who a company is, who a brand is. And at least for us, it very much does.
And so I wondered if you've ever noticed in our logo, because that's why I wanted to start with this very basic grounding of what and who we are. You see, our brand is all about balance. And when you look at our logo, I'm not sure if you've noticed before, but the top of our logo is exactly the same as the bottom of our logo. The left side of our logo is exactly the same as the right side of our logo. It means perfect symmetry. It means harmony. It means balance. And like our products, they're meant to prevent you from ever getting too hot or too cold, to keep you in that core equilibrium that we have for athletes. This logo is almost timeless in its simplicity, and in many ways, so is the story of how this logo came to be.
So I want to give you just a little bit of history here, which is going back to the spring of 1996, my senior year at the University of Maryland. The first thing that we'd had is we'd had that name, but we needed a logo. And so as thinking about it, I commissioned three separate artists. And one was the sister of my wife. One was my wife, DJ, who was my girlfriend at the time. One was one of my friends from high school. Another one was a best friend of my wife from her high school days. Well, when I commissioned, it was ultimately the best friend, Nora Olson, now Dr. Nora Olson, who won the competition, who won the best mark. And she's now the godmother of our first son, James. And she's the kind of a true creative.
She's not the kind that would bring a Fisher-Price toy over for a holiday or a birthday. She'd make him a set of plates, of ceramic plates. She would build him a dream catcher for his bed. And when I started with the brief that I gave to all three artists, it began something like this. I was like, you know, have you ever seen that statue outside of Rockefeller Center, the Atlas statue? I'm like, well, I'm thinking something like that because it's Under Armour. It's a tough brand. And what if we had, instead of just the world, but we had a shield over top of their head, and therefore this would be this very muscular person sitting there with the world on top of the shield, and therefore they would be getting ready for it under the armor?
From that, Nora said, well, that's a great brief, but instead what I'd rather do is I've looked at the leagues that are the professional leagues in the U.S., and they focus on the shield. So she started drawing these little scratches and designs to say, how can I articulate this brand, Under Armour? And as she went through them, it became very obvious to her right away through many different machinations that we settled on this very simple idea of this logo, this very simplistic logo. Something as timeless as sport itself and representing these four attributes of what make you a UA: balance, equilibrium, stability, and symmetry. This is something that we're taking to an even different level because we recognize we have this opportunity with our brand.
And so on the field of play where our brand shows up, we're actually going to be making a modification, which we think is a place that only we could do. As you'll start noticing the centering of our logo on uniforms across all the sports where we participate and we outfit athletes, because that placement is a place that we feel only UA could credibly sit. And for athletes, it means centered, in control, in perfect balance. This story matters, as Yassine and Yuron will describe some of the things that we're doing with our logo and how important our logo has been to attract great talent who see the opportunity of what we can do with this brand. So how am I thinking about the world moving forward from here?
I'm personally applying the lessons from the first 23 years in the CEO chair of this brand with one overarching lesson, especially from the last five years of having been outside of this chair or this seat. We'd like to build, and I think Jordan Spieth's golf swing is probably the best representative, but our ambition is to build an incredibly quiet company with an incredibly loud brand. We've said that before, but this is where we are because you find out when you look at things like golf; it's not about the harder you swing, the farther the ball goes. It's actually about the lighter you hold the club in your hand, and thinking about applying this maturity and this wisdom that we've hopefully built over years, and you'll hear from a very talented senior executive team that we have.
When we say building brand, it is that because it's not just another company, because brands are different. Whether we do it or we didn't do it, being a brand means you just thought about it. It was considered as that a brand is never one thing. It happens to be just everything. So as I said, we're proud of what we've done to date, and a really good list of that is several things that we've done. Walking into this chair, beginning April 1st, we immediately cut 25% of our SKUs. We talked with you about what we had to do to reconstitute this brand, and we reset our expectations that we had with the street. We built a nine-month go-to-market to complement our 18-month go-to-market. We have begun to implement category management. You'll hear more about that today from our team.
We've reconstituted this strategy that's being built and setting team as our North Star for the business. Optimize the organization from really difficult decisions of what we need to do to streamline, but just say it's our job to build and run a better company. A DTC exclusive line of product in the past, we'd go to our wholesalers. If they wouldn't buy the product, we would simply not make it. Now we have that opportunity leveraging and utilizing our retail base and our e-commerce channels and a leadership team that I'm incredibly proud of, and you're going to hear from many of them today. But most importantly, what I'm really most proud of is this definition of who we are, what the Under Armour brand is, and who we stand for. And to do this, our company, we really speak through video.
Having done that and talking in that way, the first thing we commissioned was this video of defining who we are. I don't know if there's any Eminem fans in the room and you've seen the movie 8 Mile, but one of the most compelling scenes is when he's going up and doing a battle at the end. The first thing he does, it says, I'm going to say everything about me that you may be thinking before you can. Number one, to let you know that I know exactly where we're standing right now. More importantly, to let you know that we're incredibly proud of where we are and the company we are. We've been on an amazing journey, and I'm proud to share that with you.
So I'm going to start with this first video of the day, defining who and what this brand is.
What's up, y'all? It's Kelsey Plum. We can't show you the video that they're showing you in New York right now, but take it from me, it's pretty damn good. So let's build a space. You can watch me work out. Yeah! So this video goes on about the rise of the brand. All right, now you got it. I love that. I love that. Dang, I got goosebumps. And the comeback. And that's why we're here, because we're underdogs and we're coming back. We went up, we rose, we were authentic, we were ourselves. And then instead of innovate, we tried to emulate. And the reason that I think that we rose is because we're different. We resonate with the people. Our feet are on the ground.
So now we're back. We're back to our roots. We're at a high school gym in Baltimore for a reason, you feel me? You got to remember where you come from to remember where you're going, and roots bear fruit. That's what's happening here. More importantly, it talks about who we are, and the main thing of this brand is we know who we are. We're underdogs. Grit, toughness, hunger, fire, passion, work ethic. From the mud. Being an underdog, it's a mentality. It's having a chip on your shoulder. It's being overlooked, not big enough, not fast enough, not strong enough, and proving them wrong every single time. It's everything. Exceeding people's expectations, just blowing them out of the water. That's what you live for. We're going places, if you haven't seen, and now you know what you missed.
And you can spend the rest of this time watching me shoot jumpers. Okay. Doesn't walk off. Come on, KP, what you got? Let's go. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Speaking of things that actually define what and who this brand is, our persona. For those watching at home, you weren't able to see the video that the audience here had, but we had a little special treat for you instead from Kelsey Plum, two-time WNBA champion and three-time All-Star. That underdog spirit, it defines us, and you're going to hear that articulated throughout the day. We're treating this next chapter for ourselves as a startup, a $5 billion startup, and what resources and what reach that we have as that type of a brand. Because we're a company who's much bigger and more resourced than the smalls, and smaller with more agility than the bigs.
We want to use that to our advantage. You're going to see several different examples of where that shows up. We've got more than 24,000 points of distribution across the world, 12,000 of those right here in the Americas, 2,000, as I mentioned earlier, Under Armour brand stores that we have. And we're a brand that's generally known as famous for the places we do business. So this is, we have assets. We just have to start recognizing them and leveraging them. And we've got the roster to do it as well. We can compete. We have wins that have been just the last year from South Carolina women's basketball. And if you want to play baseball, look at the quality of our roster, where it may not be as wide as many or some of the other brands, we have depth and we have quality.
If you're going to play baseball, would you rather have World Series MVP Freddie Freeman, or would you rather have the highest-paid athlete in the world in Juan Soto, now of the New York Mets? That opportunity for us is something that we will lean into. And it's no coincidence when you look at some of our incredible athletes that the one in the middle is Mr. Stephen Curry, an athlete who needs no introduction, a mega star who we recently had in Asia, where he found and had a Taylor Swift-like reaction virtually every single place that we went. We took him on tour across China in September. And finally, including in the one city where we were able to try showing up, the crowd you see, there were 7,000 people waiting outside of this hotel for him. That was not the video that's right here.
If you can imagine how many people it is. That kind of reaction is unique, and we have yet to truly be able to leverage Stephen for the opportunity he presents for the brand. So we have the right assets, but we just have to make sure that we're deploying them properly. And that's all going to change, as you'll hear from Eric Liedtke just a little bit later. One of the things I think when I think about our opportunity is I love this metaphor because I'm a believer that massive success and frankly, mediocrity are typically next-door neighbors. [The point] is that you're never really that far away. It's usually just one click to the left or one click to the right. And it's where I feel this brand is that the pipes are laid for us.
But if we do one little tweak or the right shoe, the right brand campaign that we have, and this isn't a strategy of hope, this is the reality of where we are in this industry, how it works. And what we'll do is we'll do this by being decisive. And much of our success will be defined by the number of decisions that we're making each and every day and moving forward. So I want to take a minute, and I want to describe for you this concept that we've been articulating on our earnings calls, this idea of a Sports House and what our ambition is with doing this, is that we christen this term, and it actually is something that gives it to describe us, because when I hear people talk about the athletic industry, we're also very, very different.
I believe that the unique qualities that make UA, UA are very different than what some of the other people that are sometimes listed as our competition are. Like the way the Magnificent Seven and technology are defined, I think there's something about being a sports house in our industry, which is unique. So the term sports house is actually something that was coined or came to us from the addition of my partner, Yassine. He'd worked for the last five years with the different fashion houses of Europe, and of which there's about a dozen. And to be considered a European fashion house, there's never been an American brand who's been able to crack that, or an Asian brand or anyone else. It's very special and unique and rare. And I think there's something that's coming together about this idea.
We can build from this because we define a sports house very simply as one of those brands that can show up on any field, court, or pitch versus league anywhere around the world in any sport and be seen as credible, authentic to that sport. I think this is one of our greatest strengths. I think this is one of the deepest moats that Under Armour specifically has, which makes us incredibly unique. It is one of our defining characteristics, and that we share this descriptor with, frankly, only a few other brands. We've earned that right to be called a sports house because we've shown up on the fields of Notre Dame. You've watched how this brand can outfit not just athletes there, but the way that we can show up on court as well.
This is more; this brand is much more than, frankly, just surrounding of a yoga pant or a lifestyle, a sportswear collection, or frankly, just a running shoe. It's not to say that that's not credibility and things that we strive for, but we also strive to be much more than that. We feel that we're very unique and rare in this because there are only four of us that sit in this very rare space. And the ability that we have from, again, outfitting the Notre Dames to the Real Madrids, Toni Rüdiger's, and more, it's something which is extraordinary for us. And so when we say that there's only four of us that show up, this means that we're called a podium brand. And of the four podium brands, Under Armour stands very unique. Our ages are varied, and Under Armour is the youngest by a long shot.
We are still developing. We are still growing. We're also very unique in that our persona, our personality is one which is only we could have, I believe. This is the brand that shows up each and every day for the proven winners. It's for all the ones which are certainly played their own roles. This idea of being the underdog is the persona of the kid that wasn't chosen first, that wasn't the fastest or the strongest or the biggest or the smartest or the prettiest or the most handsome, the one that had to apply the rule of 10,000 hours to be excellent at whatever their given craft was. This unique aspect is something which makes UA stand for this kid. In doing this, culture is paramount in this next chapter.
And it means that we're going to overemphasize to our team what it means to be the underdog, and we will stand for this kid, and we will represent them. But it's not just our persona, although I think it's critical to us. It's about the next chapter and where we're going. As I'm a big believer that, yes, as I think about the future, I want to apply all the lessons that we had in our first 20-some years of being in the CEO chair the last 28 years a part of this brand. And we plan to use every resource, every relationship, every experience that we've had for the benefit of driving and building for Under Armour.
This idea that history does not repeat itself, but it certainly will often rhyme, means we're going to go back to some of those quality characteristics that helped build Under Armour where it makes sense. And one of those places is here, the foundation of this brand: product, story, service, and team. We get these four things right, and we're going to win. Make the best product. Ideally, that best product is our story. Make sure we're telling those best stories about those products. Service in the business, which is everything other than product and story, and doing it with the world's greatest team of people. So the constructs you'll hear throughout the day, especially from our general managers in the regions, our leaders that we have here, is this concept of product, story, and service. So when I talk about a brand, brands are special because companies become famous.
They make it into an industry because they built a product, and the product cut through with the consumer. And they became massively successful for it. And so you'll watch companies grow, but I believe what makes Under Armour's DNA unique and different is that what brands do is we demonstrate that we can do that over and over and over again. The ability for us to continue to innovate under this banner that stands for a consistent message. And for us, it's that everything has to perform. It has to, as our mission statement reads, make you better. We created this entire category called performance apparel. It was an answer to an athlete problem of competing in sweat-soaked cotton T-shirts. We changed the game with and by doing this. And those compression shirts was our first try.
And then we went from compression shirts who were outfitting teams on the field, and all of a sudden, the coaches said, "Hey, we'd like to participate with Under Armour as well." And you watched cotton T-shirts turned into synthetic, then all of a sudden, you watched the golf polo turn into complete performance and be demanding of athletes everywhere. That no one would. You walk into a pro shop today versus 2005, where it was 100% cotton. Today is a sea of performance. Under Armour continues to innovate and change that, and everyone wouldn't dare show up on a golf course without wearing product that can perform.
A more recent example of this as well on the footwear side is something like our Flow technology, which was an answer from Stephen Curry, who asked our team, "Could we help him find 0.03 seconds faster to help him get his shot off?" Because if he did that, the math and the metrics that are in this today is incredible. They realized he could average four more points per game, and if he did that, they'd win six more games per season, which would move them from sixth place into third place and give them that much more rest and have a better option into the playoffs. That type of technology creating a stopping system in a shoe that doesn't squeak. And what I mean by that is you walk into a basketball gym and you hear two sounds: the ball bouncing and that squeak.
That squeak on the floor is actually the rubber soles that are slipping. What's amazing, you walk into a basketball court with a team wearing Under Armour Flow technology or Curry shoes, all you hear is the ball bouncing. This type of innovation is what we define as our Trojan horse for a brand. This is what defines and makes us and something which I'm incredibly, incredibly proud of. What we're doing, we've done that again, and we've named a new category. And yes, I've been walking around with this thing in my pocket for a while. It's where I tell people and say, "The future of sports is in my hand. What are the next great innovations?" And the next place I think that we will bring performance on a broad-based basis.
And it's where I show them and pull them out to this concept of introducing the StealthForm Uncrushable Cap, which is something you can wear on your head in a Kendall Roy type of ambition without the $800 price tag, but in every one of those instances, it can roll up and be pure performance. And if I want, I can roll this thing up and put it in my pocket. I can rinse it with water. I don't have to no longer travel with it with an old pair of socks and T-shirt and underwear inside to try to maintain its form. It's bringing true performance. And one of our predictions is that in the next two years, everyone will have their version of the performance cap. This is what we do of reinventing markets and not only creating new products, but also changing price points.
We're ending the baseball hat market where this has been a $25 price point that's typically out the door at around $16. At $45, the Under Armour StealthForm is something that can win for our consumer. Taking price points up is what we do, and our second priority then, moving from product, it goes to story. I'm going to show you now something that we're incredibly proud of. From the brand that made Protect This House famous, I'm thrilled to show you our new house that we're moving into this month, and it's extraordinary: 285,000 sq ft of space in our new building that'll house 1,500 of our corporate teammates in Baltimore, all together in one place, and we've been on two different campuses and multiple different buildings prior to this day.
This new HQ building, titled appropriately, the Sports House, is a true trailblazer in sustainability design as well with innovation and LEED Platinum certification, net zero certification, achieving zero net energy consumption over a year's time, mass timber construction, 4,000 solar panels, 350 geothermals, and so much more. So that's what it saves us. But let me now tell you what it's giving us and what it's going to enable for us. Our 24,000 sq ft new flagship retail store is amazing. That'll inform both our retail customers, our great wholesale partners that we have, as well as our own 2,000-store fleet. That having this, it's one of the biggest misses I feel like I had in the first chapter by not having that store on campus.
50,000 sq ft of digital showrooms to use, the building to help sell to our customers, a field and stadium to host games, to have the local community come to us to keep sport close to our team. What we're doing is keeping that field program. This is what we do, as well as learning and making sure we're aware what athletes are wearing to and from when they're with us. We're also organizing how we sit for the first time in a collaborative way of product, marketing, and the region, all sitting together. An incredible cafeteria, a beautiful gym, and all the things that we need that will help us drive culture. Secondly, on a personal note, it's also amazing to move into this place of what it will do and build for the brand, giving us the opportunity to, frankly, turn the page.
And it's an amazing opportunity for us, and frankly, feels like a bit of serendipity. So we've talked about what the definition of a sports house is, but the details, the persona that makes it Under Armour is very unique. Under Armour is about athletes. Under Armour is about sports. Under Armour is about innovation. And Under Armour is about passion. You can feel that. You can see it. You can feel it from the 16,000 teammates we have at UA. And what we're doing is we're going to build something different because in the product spectrum of good, better, and best, where in the recent past, Under Armour has made a lot of good product, some better product, and nowhere near enough best level product, your mind will change on this brand today.
As you look at what you've seen, Yuron and Kyle are building for this brand, with John Varvatos as well, who helps from a design standpoint. We have the team in place to build, and we're ready to get started. And the great news about this is we don't have to stop selling good in order to premiumize the brand. We just need to focus on our better and best. And we've taken steps into building and doing this, and we've seen that this year through Under Armour e-commerce by eliminating promotions, reducing them significantly across the line in this year. And the reaction from the consumer has been terrific. And you've seen that pay off for us in our gross margin, going from about a third of our products being sold full price to more than 50% of our products on our own e-commerce channel selling that way.
And what we're seeing, it gives us great encouragement of what we can do. We certainly have work to do, but we're getting better. And the good news about this is we say we're going to premiumize the brand, we have to tell our story about that. And the great news about this is that we have the money to do it. Don't squint your eyes too much. It's not there, but we do have more than $500 million in marketing. And so this isn't a case of we don't have the money. We may just not like how we're spending the money. So we'll be more thoughtful and prudent with that $500 million to create something that gets behind one large initiative or effort. And Eric will tell you more about that in greater detail a little bit later.
Because what we discovered about our brand is that we became a company that was actually selling on price. And that's how the consumer was seeing us, where we have this very unique sort of technical DNA, but I think we'd lost that. And we want to move from that and becoming a brand that doesn't sell on price, but a brand that sells on story, which is why not unlike the hat or anything else that we sell, we're going to make sure there's three very grounding properties that every consumer knows about our products, starting at the lowest common denominator of the hang tag, all the way up to what we put onto the POP itself. What a product is, what a product does, and how that product will make you better.
And if we can't answer those three questions for every product Under Armour makes, we probably shouldn't make it. You have to earn the privilege to be an Under Armour product, to earn that mark that sits on your chest or on your cap. Our service level, it comes to what and who we are, this concept that I'd like to introduce for you of growing by constraint. Constraint for this brand is a very unique place. It's an opportunity for us to really be able to grow. And we're reevaluating everything: our number of vendors, the outside resources that we use, the number of agencies, the number of SKUs that we have. And a great example, I think it's been helpful for people, of imagine this metaphor across the company.
You're going to hear from Kyle Blakely, our head of innovation, who also runs our inline product team, fabric team. And in building our products, taking over this, we thought we might need more resources. We're bringing 325 fabrics to market each season. And so when Kyle told me about thinking about new resources, I said, "Before we do that, can you tell me what the 80/20 rule is on the 325 fabrics?" And the answer probably won't surprise many of you, but 80% of our business is being done with 30 of those fabrics. And so we thought if we can take 325 fabrics, and the number is not 30, but what if it was 150 or 160?
Reduce 50% of that workload for the team and be that much better and eliminate all those trips and visits to factories, all those confirmation samples of lab dips and color dyes, all those emails back and forth where we can simply be better. Probably even more articulated than that is the way it shows up in our own retail expression. Our Project Ascend that we've launched recently and our new flagship retail will help establish for us. We've gone from about 1,200 SKUs in a store, about a 4,500 sq ft store, to less than 600. Clearer sight lines, less product, easier to shop, just being more consistent and selling so much more of so much less products that matter for our consumer. Carol will also talk you through the new headquarters store in a little more detail.
And when we know that we have the right products, because this is something that we've brought in of what's different about what we've done and really been attacking in the last eight months, this Troika, these three things, product story in the commercial teams, the region, the presidents of these regions, and the leadership that we have there, making sure this is a part of every conversation that we have as a leadership group, ensuring that we talk about these three things and how they work together when you get the right product and the story and it shows up at the right moment at retail. This is what makes this happen. And doing that, it's important to be commercial because we want to be out there with our teams and we want to be traveling, seeing our customers.
Of late, we've spent time on the road just the last eight months, more than 41 different cities, some of those multiple trips, eight different countries, and telling our story of letting our partners know and talking to them and looking them in the eye and telling them this story that you're seeing right now and ensuring that each and every one of our key strategic partners of a brand knows that they're one of our key strategic partners. These fundamental groundings is where we are as a company. We're also going to be doing things of bringing back and not being afraid of the word family. We play a good home game, especially with our new headquarters, and we're going to play a lot of those moving forward. And finally, I'd like to talk you through this about our team. I can tell you that our tables substantially filled.
Our team is on the court. We are ready to roll as an organization, and we will write this in our next chapter, this culture of teamwork and an accountable culture, and this isn't about any one individual getting back or going back. We're not using the word. There's nothing about the past other than the elements that will help move us forward. This is about lifting our team up, and you're beginning to see that happen, so how do you do that? Culture is easiest to find by this. Number one, ensuring that every person on our squad knows exactly what they're supposed to do each and every day and being incredibly crystal clear with what their definition of success should be: a true culture of teamwork.
And one thing that we do know and we ask you to look for some of these signs is that our brand will inflect before our business does. Today was meant to be qualitative because we just want you to hear our story. It's been so long since we've told it to you. And we're seeing some leading indicators and things as the product that you're going to see today, but as mundane as our internship program. At this time versus what we finished with a year ago, we have more than 2x as many 18-22-year-olds that have been applying to be Under Armour interns. When I say there's something happening or there's this feeling of momentum, it is beginning to go. And finally, of course, it can't look any further than the executive table that we have together. There's 11 that sit in our ELT.
There's seven of them have new titles. Three of them are new faces to this table. And I can tell you one thing is there's trusting, there's respecting, and there's liking. If you have two are required, but three is a benefit. This team enjoys working together. And while, as I said, history may not repeat, it will often rhyme. These foundational pillars, this is what I refer to as my job description. They sit in my office. I think about them each and every day. And the one requirement that I have is ensuring that I have the right leaders to drive each and every one of these initiatives. I'm about to introduce someone who will take you through that product construct of product story and service, beginning with product. And I'm thrilled to introduce a really amazing leader, partner, and creative product visionary, Mr. Yassine Saidi, our Chief Product Officer.
Now taking the stage, Chief Product Officer, Yassine Saidi.
Hi everyone. My name is Yassine Saidi. I've been here for about 10 months. I'm not here just as the CPO of Under Armour, but I'm actually representing 430 teammates dedicated to building Under Armour product. This presentation will be in three parts. I will take you through our strategy as a CPO and a CPO organization. We'll talk about innovation with Kyle, and we'll dive into five of our 14 categories with Yuron in a minute. Let me tell you about my journey before joining Under Armour. So I've been in the sport industry led by my passion for sports for about 22 years. I spent eight years at Adidas creating product for the most demanding athletes.
And then I moved to Puma, where I actually created products that are related to culture and collaboration, such as Rihanna among many other partners we work with. And that has been defining for the turnaround of the German brand. Then I've decided to create my own agency and build something very different and get into the industry pretty widely in the sense that I worked for five years for some of the most renowned fashion houses and worked with some of the most creative directors in this world. And this combined between performance, lifestyle at Puma, and fashion took me to where I am today and leading this amazing product organization. What actually drew me at Under Armour is the power of its logo. Kevin mentioned the balance, left, right, top to bottom. And I really thank Nora Olson for creating such a beautiful art piece.
Beyond the fact that what this logo means in our industry and the emotional sports that it represents, I always looked at it as an amazing visual that can be integrated into products, and when I was having my agency, funny enough, when Kevin called me about this time last year, I had Under Armour as a target client for 2024. Here I am working on this. I promise and I have the ambition with my team to create products that are unique and will define our industry going forward. The true power of the brand, it's innovation. It's innovation culture, it's innovation lab. The brand hasn't just started in this industry by creating another expression of an existing product or existing category. It actually created a product from a consumer need, an athlete need through innovation. Innovation is a true culture of the brand.
Again, I've been about 22 years in this industry. I've been to many buildings, many headquarters, and I believe that we have not only the best setup, but we have the best talent to drive innovation forward for the years to come. When I joined, I had to redefine the semantics of what innovation meant. Innovation at Under Armour means material, construction, engineering, technology. It's like very technical. It's very science-based innovation, which is the foundation of the brand. What I've learned in my last five years in these fashion houses is innovation in design. These brands and these houses do not talk innovation the same way Under Armour used to talk about. So now we're bringing these two elements of design and technology to push the boundaries of technology and design to create that magic which we call form and function.
And you will see that display in our product. So that's just a very foundational and how we're going to approach product going forward, but when it comes to the organization, I joined a very talented organization that was dysfunctional based on my experience on other companies, so what we've done in my first 100 days is to work on transforming our product engine. We look at how we were operating from a product creation standpoint. We look at premiumizing our brand and we drive efficiency, and we go more into details when we get to the operating model. We were working in three different setups by division. You had an apparel organization, a footwear organization, an accessories organization. It really felt like three different companies within the company.
Teams that do not necessarily communicate to each other, innovation that were not shared, stories were not told together, and pretty dysfunctional, but very talented team that really willing to work together. So we moved from that approach to a more consumer-centric approach, which is each category has its own rhythm, competitive set, and culture. And we look today at training, footwear, apparel, and accessories. We look at team sports, footwear, apparel, and accessories, and so on and so forth. And the same situation for all of the 14 categories that we will actually drive. Driven category management that also helps us to drive with purpose and understand the consumer. That's from our category management. Then we moved into our SKU and range architecture. Kevin showed you that slide earlier and how a good, better, best was set up. We were really chasing revenue.
That organization leads you to chase revenue, and that's why your investment on a good level is higher than your better, best. My objective with the team was to rebalance that and have an offer that is more cohesive, more aligned with the consumer, and more aligned also with our distribution to have a balanced good, better, and best. And again, investing in better and best do not mean not doing good. We're just going to do it better. Transforming the product engine, moving from a divisional organization to a category organization helped us also to understand and to shed light on some efficiency or potential that we had. We said we're reducing our SKUs, reducing our SKUs by 25%. That's directly linked to the new organization that we have. We identify the overlapping SKUs. We identify the product that we didn't really need.
We identified on footwear and apparel some over-investment in some level of the category. So we've decided to reduce by 25%. And usually when you ask your product manager to reduce by 25% the SKUs, it's usually the impossible task. What we felt in the team is an overwhelming excitement of reducing the clutter that we had in our offering. In footwear, our foams, we've consolidated our foam footwear from 38 chemistries to 19 and consolidated into three names, HOVR, Flow, and Charged. We'll clarify our approach into footwear and also define our consumer benefits way clearer. And our materials, we went through the 80/20 materials analysis. And again, 30 SKUs are representing 80%. 30 materials are representing 80% of our volume, and we get streamlined here and be more efficient.
Those transformations helped us to be more focused, creating elevated products, but also have a more creative experience that is centered into the consumer. There's also no product without story. Every product that we create has to be rooted in stories, and it's to make sense in the overall action of the brand. Our stories will be in three levels. We'll have collaboration-based story. We haven't entered the collaboration business yet. We will start in Fall Winter 2025. Our innovation will take more space in our storytelling and our marketing. We're also going to celebrate 30 years of the brand by reintroducing some products or celebrating some of the wins that we had in the past years. This transformation and this multi-level, we believe, that the stage is set for 2025 to be able to move forward.
But I want to take you through some of the product changes and aesthetic that we've approached. Before doing so, we need to ground our brand into Under Armour as an apparel brand, and we'll remain an apparel brand. This brand was born with HeatGear and ColdGear, one that keeps you dry and warm and one that keeps you cool and dry. And this will be the foundation going forward, and we'll keep innovating apparel and create more around that part of the business. But as we said, having a balanced brand, having a Sports House, we said logo is balanced left and right, top to bottom. We believe that footwear will unlock the potential of the brand, but we'll also balance the brand between footwear and apparel. And the way we're going to do it and the way we're going to launch footwear will be in two chapters.
Chapter One, we're going to define our new design language, and that will start already in January 2025, in a couple of weeks from now. And the launch, the first launch and the first reveal of our product will be the Echo, and I want to take a minute to look at this new product. The Echo actually comes from a feature and a technology that was created by Under Armour in 2020, launched in 2020, called the SpeedForm. And as we talked about earlier on elevating the design language, this is how the product leads us, where you have a logo that is completely integrated, seamlessly into our products, and still highly performant. We're entering sportswear not just by leveraging on our logo, but we're also leveraging on our technology. And Yuron will take us through more into details in the product section.
That's chapter one that launches in January with Steph Curry during All-Star Game, then we get into chapter two. We talked about merging form and function. Merging form and function, and I want to introduce you to the Aura concept. We talked about design, innovation, technical innovation, and then centering the product into the power of our logo and the balance of our logo, and this is the Aura trainer that will be launched in July next year, and we'll also come in a complete head-to-toe concept and we'll define the brand going forward in footwear and apparel, let me show you how it looks like in a broader scale. The Aura not only will define footwear and apparel for Under Armour starting Fall, Winter 2025, but it also creates what we call the halo effect.
The halo effect in our product, but the halo effect in the mindset shift in our teammates and how we approach design, technology, and how we use our logo. I want to talk to you as well of how we're going to commercialize this product. Here's the Aura that has a unique midsole design. It started from the logo on the heel, going all the way up and very simplified upper. New approach on our branding as well. We'll be positioned at $140 and we'll be distributed into a better and best distribution. We talked about rebalancing good, better, best, and this is how we're going to bring into a good level distribution, where you see that design language definitely taking from $140 and going to the Echo at $90 will be a wider distribution.
And we'll be able to tell stories from head to toe and from best to good and be very holistic in how we approach both footwear, apparel, and accessories. But we're also very humble and very aware of where we are. We have not yet made our defining product. And this is a sentence that you can see when you enter our footwear Portland office. And it's not just a statement. It's a call to action for our team that they all embrace. We believe that we will define not only the product for Under Armour in the next months, but we'll define the product for the industry in the coming years. And I cannot be more confident that we have the right team and that we have the right setup and we have the innovation pipeline to go forward.
So let me introduce you to Kyle Blakely that's going to take us through innovation.
Now taking the stage, Senior Vice President of Innovation, Testing, and Development, Kyle Blakely.
Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for having us here and thank you for your time. I've been at Under Armour about 17 years, and I've had the benefit of seeing really all of our cycles, the highs and the lows. The one thing I want to share with you today is our culture cannot be conquered. It can't be conquered. And one of the things I'm most confident about having been here this long is that our front-to-back strategy is more buttoned up than ever. The front end and the back end, we're all on the same page.
That's why, as a leader of innovation, I'm here today to talk to you about a strategy that we're effecting right now as we go to market. So I'm so excited about what we have to come and to share this with you. First thing we're going to do, we're going to talk about innovation. I'm going to take you on a little bit of a journey. First of all, we're going to talk about foundational innovations. Now, Under Armour is known for innovation. That's what we're known for. Athletes trust us. I'm going to remind you of some of those innovations that we've had over the years. The cool thing is that what I'm going to show you, those are innovations that are still alive today and still driving new opportunities. I'm also going to talk to you about how we're going to level up.
Today, you're hearing a whole lot about how the company is evolving, how we're getting better. The innovation team and development team has to do the same thing. And we have a lot of opportunities I'm going to share with you. And finally, I'm going to talk to you about what's next. We're going to show you some product that's coming, some product that's making some waves on some of our athletes, things that we're really excited about. So as we dive in, there's three takeaways that I want you to take from Under Armour innovation. The first thing is our mission here, obviously, is to make athletes better. You know that. We're also here to ignite brand heat. But we're also here to drive revenue. Our team is here to help create commercial opportunities. This is part of our charter.
So to get this kicked off, I'm going to take you on a little bit of a journey to Baltimore, Maryland, in our world-class proving ground.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
How cool is that? That video is very special. That video was made only by sounds that are made by our lab instruments. And it's really cool because it kind of represents a symphony of how we work on product. One thing you're going to hear today, especially for me, is that we're disruptive because we're small enough to be disruptive. No other brand could build a lab like that and have that resource and put it to work the way that we do. So like I said, we're going to talk about foundational innovation. We're going to jump right into this concept of low shed. Some studies show that you consume as much as five grams of plastic a week.
That's how much plastic's in a credit card. There's lots of sources for that. It's in the water. It's in the air. But Under Armour is a contributor to that. We make textiles out of plastics, whether it's a fleece or some other soft fabric. So a few years ago, we said, "Hey, we're actually part of this problem. We're not going to fight it. We're going to figure out a way to make it better." The only way we could actually do that is to understand how much our fabrics actually shed. There was no real test method out there to figure this out. So the Proving Grounds Lab went to work to figure out how do we quantify how much a fabric sheds and how do we actually help make better product for our consumer and better product for the world.
You can see on the scale that we have very high-shedding fabric on this side and very low-shedding fabric on that side. This is where our company is moving. And it's really impressive because just as a few weeks ago, we actually got global certification on this standard. So Under Armour's not just here innovating for the athletes. We're innovating for the whole industry. Next thing we'll talk about is ColdGear Infrared. ColdGear has been around a long time. It's about a 10-year-old technology, but over time, it's driven about $1 billion. And it's very special. It's very simple. We took ceramic particles and we applied them to the back of the fabric to help trap heat next to skin. And it really, really works. It actually helps your body use less energy to stay at a constant temperature. You need your energy for other things.
We'll help you conserve that. Then you have the next technology, which is SpeedForm. Under Armour is an apparel company. We started as an apparel company. And this shoe came out a few years ago, and this was built in a bra factory. And the reason we did that, not to be able to just say it was made in a bra factory, is actually so we could achieve the best, most contoured fit to your foot. So it's an incredible technology. And as you saw in the Aura trainer that Yassine showed a second ago, that's actually the technology that we're using to build up in that shoe. Next, we have the Clone technology. Clone is very special. We have 40 patents in this space alone across apparel, accessories, and footwear applications.
This is a textile technology that actually the fabric expands when it's stretched, which is a unique thing. It expands with contoured shapes. It expands in movement. It really creates this no distraction, enabling fit. Also, through the course of a soccer match, it expands if your foot is swelling. It does all these things for the athletes. And this is something I'll share with you that we're applying to other products in the future. And finally, near and dear to my heart is our ArmourGrid technology. We have the best, most elusive football uniforms on the planet. And yeah, I said elusive, not a term you usually use, because a lot of people don't think you can actually use a football jersey to be harder to tackle.
But through a lot of research and understanding and creating a football jersey that actually doesn't stretch at all, we were able to create a jersey that is extremely hard to grab, not to mention it's super durable. As we move forward, it's super breathable and super comfortable. Kevin's actually going to show you in a little bit how this is enabling some of our teams to go to battle and make them better on the field. So those are our foundational technologies. That's what we're known for. But like I said, we also have to level up in innovation. So the first thing we did is we looked at structure. We looked at efficiency, and we looked at how we're providing commercial opportunities, like I told you earlier. So let's start a little bit on the structure.
Under Armour's setup is very unique, where the innovation and the development teams are one team. Typically, they're on separate organizations. The development team and the innovation team are deliberately together. So our team works anywhere from six years out to six months out. The reason for that is because we don't have a wall. When we create a technology, we don't have a wall to throw it over to hope it gets commercialized. We're creating it together with the team all at once. And to do that, you have to pull in your other partners like product and design and supply chain to bring things through. This is a unique thing to us, and it's very Under Armour. The next thing is just getting better at how we're running our business. At the end of the day, innovation has to have some type of process.
You can't have a free-for-all. We have the right amount of process. We've done a lot of work with our structure and a lot of work with figuring out our priorities to enable some of these gains that you see on the screen here. The thing I want to call it the most is the engagement with innovation in the brand. We're not in a separate warehouse. We're not the secret thing off to the side. We're integrated and part of the brand, and now people know how to interact with us and drive some of these metrics forward. Like Yassine said, our mission here is to reinvigorate key franchises with technical innovation. I can't say this enough. The technologies that we are creating are here to drive business. So let's talk about what's next. Like I said a minute ago, Under Armour's small enough to be super disruptive.
This is a spinning machine. If you look down here in this corner, that's a person. This thing is three stories tall. It's about 50 yards wide. It would fill this room and be probably taller. This is something that we built to enable an innovation that we've created not only to make athletes better, to also drive sustainability. This technology is called NEOLAST. This is a technology that we created a polymer with our partner, Celanese, to replace Spandex. And the reason for that is Spandex has some opportunities. Of course, Under Armour was the originator of using Spandex in performance product. We actually have been looking at this for many years, and we said, "We actually think we can make it better.
There's actually some things that are going on that we can improve. First of all, Spandex, when you mix it with polyester, it's really hard to recycle. It's also made with chemicals. It's not great to produce. But from a performance perspective, it's not super durable. It holds on to moisture, yellows. It doesn't have a whole lot of power. There's things that we felt that we can improve. So we set out about seven years ago to do this. We figured out there were no solutions that were available. We actually had to create a yarn and a polymer from the ground up. There you saw a spinning machine a minute ago. We actually have two of those. And again, we had the courage to drive that forward for the industry. Now we've created this product that does enable better recycling with polyester.
It is more sustainable to produce, but it's also, again, performance-driven sustainability. It's actually making the experience for the athlete better. It manages moisture. It's more durable. It does all those things that Under Armour product needs to do. So Under Armour was the originator, base layer. We started that product. It only makes sense for us to make it better for the athlete and for the world, and you're going to talk about that rollout here in a minute. The next thing we're going to get into is our Velociti Elite 3. This runner up here, his name is Biya Simbassa. A couple of weeks ago, he ran the fourth-fastest American marathon time in history. Let that sink in a minute. The fourth-fastest marathon time by an American in history. He was wearing this shoe. This is our Velociti Elite 3 that we have coming out soon.
This is our most technical running shoe that we've ever created. It's got an ultralight upper. The whole thing is considered as a system with our dual midsole, our carbon plate for propulsion. We have our thin red rubber on the outsole. All those things are great. We'll talk about technology all day long, but this shoe looks incredible. It looks incredible. Our athletes swear by it. Our pro athletes already say they have to wear this. And again, we'll talk about how this is driving that commercial opportunity from innovation here in a minute. And finally, the innovation team here is not just to support shirts and shoes. The athlete's journey involves many things. Most of you came here with a bag today, right? You can see the athlete on the screen here. He's carrying a bag. It's part of life.
We saw an opportunity to say, "Man, you're walking between class. You had a hard practice. You're all over the place. You got a 30-pound bag. It's not comfortable. It's annoying. You got a shoulder strap off. How can we make a backpack more comfortable?" Before, I told you about the technology, the Clone technology. And when you use that technology on a backpack strap, you actually get something really incredible: Under Armour suspension straps. What we're able to do here is create a strap that actually stretches and expands when it's on your shoulders, that actually reduces the amount of pressure that you have and that you feel. And then we actually had a braking strap put in so it doesn't bounce as you're using it and as you're walking. It's really incredible. And the cool thing about this is it's perceivable.
This is one of the key things about Under Armour innovation: we want you to feel it. So if anybody's actually interested in seeing how this feels, and I'm telling you, I'll tell you what, it's amazing. Come see me upstairs in a little bit, and we'll do a little demo. With that, I'm going to invite my partner, Yuron, up here to talk to you a little bit more about our product.
Now taking the stage, Senior Vice President of Sportswear, Basketball, Running, and Collaborations, Yuron White.
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How's everyone doing? Yeah. You guys doing all right? We still got a little energy in the room. I want to thank you guys for your time. I want to thank you for your energy.
I'm excited to be in front of you and actually walk you through some of the work that our product creation team has been working on over the last few months. My name is Yuron White, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Product. And I've been in the industry for about 25 years. I've spent 20 of those leading product creation throughout many, many companies throughout the global or throughout the world. And I'm happy to be with you guys. The one question that was asked to me when I first started was, "Why Under Armour?" And for me, it was really simple. First and foremost, it was the three people that came up on the stage right before me. With Kyle, with Yassine, and with Kevin, it was a conversation about people. It was a conversation about community, and it was a conversation about product.
Product is really the first reason that I came here. The second one is the people, and the last one is the opportunity. Let me start with the product. From the moment I began my journey here, I was struck by the passion and the dedication of the team. We share a common vision of innovation and excellence, and it's inspiring work alongside individuals who are not only talented but also committed to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the footwear industry. Second, the product speaks for itself, and I'm going to get into it with you guys. Under Armour is known for its cutting-edge technology and commitment to performance. I was drawn to the challenge of creating footwear that enhances athletic performance and supports our athletes in achieving their goals.
The drive for continuous improvement and innovation in our products aligns perfectly with my values and my aspirations as well, and then lastly, the opportunity, so if you think about it, Under Armour is a brand that is constantly evolving, and I saw that chance to contribute to that growth. The potential to influence the direction of our product, work with our most influential athlete, Stephen Curry, in the world, and to make meaningful and impactful and an impact within the company and the industry was a significant factor in my decision to join this team, and so today, I'll be focusing on a couple of the categories that you've seen called out, outlining our We Will statements, our strategic focus within the categories, and amplifying some of the great work being done by our product creation team.
Training is a category that has founded this brand, and it's rooted in innovation. We have a history of pioneering new technologies in athletic apparel and footwear. We will continue to innovate, remain at the forefront of the training market, attracting new generation who seeks the latest advancements to enhance their performance. 30 years ago, we provided athletes with an undeniable benefit: changing the athletic market forever. NEOLAST, which Kyle talked about a little bit earlier, will enhance the performance of our foundational category, Base Layer, and bring the following performance benefits to our consumer. It has enhanced stretch power and movement. It's improved moisture management. And lastly, a more durable product with longer lifespan and more consistent fit. And as we drive to our 30th anniversary, HeatGear begins to evolve with NEOLAST in multiple avenues.
First, in core silhouettes that celebrate our heritage and our staples to our target consumer. Second, seasonal trend-driven HeatGear designs grounded in NEOLAST materials. And lastly, let me make sure I get this one right: our partnerships and collabs, ensuring that our top-tier athletes, schools, and collabs are utilized to bring this innovation to life at relevant times and relevant places. And a shoe that was talked about a little bit earlier, I want to take a little bit of a deep dive. This is the UA Aura, and it's using the logo architecture in the midsole and the heel. I want to make sure that you guys understand that because when we talk about form meets function, you start to see the power of our brand come to life through the lens of innovation. And it provides disruptive aesthetic as well as a more supportive and stable base.
It has HOVR cushioning in it. It gives you light, comfortable, and responsive cushioning. It gives you energy and a full range for your workouts. It's breathable, and it's lightweight performance, and the material is molded into that upper. Then it has a matte toe cap and TPU film added to the upper for additional durability for the toughest workouts. Then we think about Team Sports. Team Sports really embodies our brand and our DNA. Our aspirations are to be number one in Team Sports with a focus on innovation, performance through an underdog spirit. The teams drive Base Layer. It drives training. It drives sportswear, and it sets the tone for the brand. As Kevin and Yassine said earlier in the presentation, we're going to get back to our roots.
We'll get louder with cleats and apparel that drive innovation in unexpected ways, investing in innovation with agility and control-cleat concepts. We will evolve the get-bold strategy with our ability to disrupt, shock and awe, and be thought leaders in team. It will be front and center in 2025, ultimately empowering athletes in unexpected ways. So this slide is really important to me because this was actually the first company that called and reached out to us. And I want to just take you through a little bit of a story of my journey with the company Mansory. It's a luxury car modification customization company. It's based out of Germany.
Kourosh Mansory actually gave me a call and said, "I want to do something with you guys." This company is known for its bold and often extravagant designs, which include extensive use of carbon fiber, custom body kits, tailor-made interiors, and performance upgrade. But they're innovators. They're innovators in color. They're innovators in graphics, and they're innovators in material. The company has gained a reputation for creating some of the most distinctive and opulent customized vehicles in the world. Their work is often seen as a blend of craftsmanship and extreme luxury, appealing to a niche market of wealthy car enthusiasts around the world, including a lot of our athletes. With our relentless pursuit to innovate, we will harness the power of sport culture, innovating with innovators. The shoe that you see on the screen is called the Blur Pro. It's an American football shoe.
You think about athletes like Justin Jefferson, Zay Flowers, Kyle Hamilton. We'll actually launch this shoe with them in September. And then our transition to football. So when you think about it, a lot of you guys may call it soccer. Some may call it global football. We call it football here because we're a global company. And we're going to deliver the Mach 1 Elite FG. This is our most responsive agility boot built ever, built for maximum acceleration and deceleration. It has bold graphics that actually Echo the sound of speed. So as you take a look there, you start to see that graphic explode. It's talking about speed. It's bringing the consumer into an experience. There's a tuned carbon fiber plate for the quickest first step, directional forefoot flex, and forged carbon in the midfoot stiffness.
It has a micro wrap upper for directional lockdown and high-speed cutting, an agility stud layout engineered for high-speed acceleration, cutting, and changes of direction. It's engineered knit collar for a sock-like fit. And last but not least, it's 7.8 ounces in a size 10. The consumer, the athlete will feel that when they put it on their feet, and it'll create a competitive advantage for them as well. So I want to talk a little bit about basketball. At UA, we have embedded ourselves within the basketball culture. As Kyle mentioned earlier, we're here to create solutions that make athletes better. We're creating a competitive advantage for our athletes through these solutions. What you see here is just a snapshot of the breadth in which we're fundamentally integrating into the athlete experience for basketball, from grassroots programs to high school to collegiate to professional.
We're fostering loyalty among athletes around the world. This slide actually really starts to contextualize what we're doing: 26 men's AAU teams, 26 women's AAU teams that compete with top talent across the nation. We currently outfit 2,500 high schools nationally, and this includes our Project Rampart schools in Baltimore, where we not only outfit those athletes, but we're also renovating over 25 facilities to take care of the city. Collegiate sports, I think you guys know this: Notre Dame, Maryland, University of South Carolina's women's basketball team, which has dominated in the last few years. And then on the professional side, Kelsey Plum. KP talked about it a little bit today: two-time WNBA champion, two-time gold medalist. We also have De'Aaron Fox. Anybody play basketball? Just a raise of hands. Anybody shoot hoops? We got one. We got one hoop shooter. We got two.
Have you ever scored 109 points in two games? De'Aaron Fox has set an NBA record for scoring 109 points in two games. It just so happened to coincide with the launch of our product, his first signature shoe under the Curry brand. And as you guys know, Stephen Curry. For over 12 years, we've been dedicated to crafting and perfecting our designs at Under Armour, focusing on evolution from one shoe to the next. Each iteration has been built on the last, ensuring that every athlete experience is unparalleled with performance and comfort. We've listened to feedback, embraced innovation, and refined our designs to meet the demands of the game. But now with the Curry 13, we're not just evolving. We're revolutionizing. This isn't just another shoe. It's going to be a game changer for us.
As I stated earlier, one of my biggest reasons for coming to the brand was to have the opportunity to work with Stephen. I think he's one of the most influential athletes in the game, and the opportunity to work, innovate, and bring consumer experiences to life through product with Stephen was undeniable for me. Stephen's influence is undeniable. With new elevated design language that moves us into new territory, it's pushing us where we've been from a silhouette standpoint while also staying true to all of the performance attributes that we know Steph needs to stay on top of his game, so with that, I want to introduce you all to the Curry 13. So as you start to take a look at this shoe, understand that our designers, Ken Link, Safa, and Ed Wallace, started to have some inspiration from Stephen and this notion of splash.
And so if you think about someone stepping into this shoe, the splash coming up around it, it's where form meets function and innovation. There's an injection molded EVA cage for 360-degree containment, high abrasion Flow outsole for pinnacle traction, a Warp midfoot shank for lateral stability. It's lightweight. It's actually the lightest signature shoe for Curry at 11.6 ounces. The cushioning is HOVR, so he's going to have the responsiveness in the cushioning to stay fresh in the 4th quarter. And there's an energy return there for him as well. And we'll provide the ultimate court feel with Flow technology. KP talked about it a little bit earlier in the presentation, but this Flow technology will allow him to have a competitive advantage with the athletes. So we transition. What do you guys think? Curry 13, feeling good? Everyone feel okay? Great, great.
As we transition to running, if there's one priority for the running category, it's consistently delivering elevated running experience across the range. From fit to underfoot cushioning, we need to do the hard work to ensure we're constantly exceeding expectations and setting the upward trajectory for UA running. One of the key insights coming from runners has been the request for consistency. Stop changing your shoes. You get something that feels good, and I want to go back and get it, and we can't get it anymore. Consistency in their experience and in our franchises. We must be the brand that they can rely on. We have focused performance run lineup into two silos: the Velociti and the Aura. The Aura will be the force that drives sports forward under Under Armour. It's the perfect synthesis of design, performance, and innovation.
But as Aura drives sports forward, we'll open the aperture up on the Velociti silo to now cover the complete range of solutions needed by the athlete, from speed to distance. We've distilled our focus down to the fundamentals of preparation for the long miles, the foundational work, and the acceleration, the feeling of speed, explosiveness, and propulsion with every athlete. And with acceleration, the sharp point for us is speed and explosiveness. We're record-breaking race day speed in the Velociti Elite to making every training run feel faster in the speed. We've obsessed weight, geometry, innovation, and the experience to give the athletes the essential edge when it matters the most. And with preparation, two new shoes that you haven't seen yet, we provide solutions in the distance and the pace. They're focused on the distance and endurance runners.
From everyday base miles to week-long runs, these are the tools every athlete needs for conditioning. We're putting the consumer first and how we collaborate and approach in essentials. We talked a little bit about mid-level and what we're doing under the $100 price point. We reduce the number of styles being offered. We've sharpened the positioning and the functionality of every style and created a complementary lineup that feels undeniably UA while giving each style their own stance and DNA. And so what you see on this screen here is actually the Assert 10, and it's transforming into the Assert 11. We aligned design talent to it, and we wanted to make sure that it felt fresh, it felt new, and it was younger, faster, and fresher for our consumer. And what we found as we've had conversations with the retailers, they're asking for this shoe earlier.
They've seen that we've sweated the details. They understand that the performance is there, but also the aesthetic is there as well. And you've seen, spoke earlier about the halo effect and the design language cascading throughout the line. Here's another example where we start with the Velociti Elite, which you guys have all heard about. Right? This transformation into the actual product itself at $75 in the Assert. They're elevated design principles. We're democratizing our design with the best performance product in our line all the way down to our core level in the running shoe line. And in sportswear, we amplify life through the next generation. And I think it's really important for me to give you guys a little bit of a descriptor of why we're in sportswear. We're inspired by the unstoppable generation.
They're young, they're bold, and they're driven individuals who demand authenticity and strive to be their best. In a competitive landscape, Under Armour's approach stands out by merging performance with style in a way that is both authentic and innovative. While other brands may focus solely on aesthetics or functionality, Under Armour's sportswear line blurs these boundaries, offering products that are both high-performing and stylish. The dual focus on sport culture and sport design ensures that our products resonate deeply with the unstoppable generation, setting us apart from competitors who may not fully understand or embrace this multifaceted approach. So our sportswear team will define what Under Armour sportswear will be, ensuring that the product we create and the stories that we tell connect and inspire this unstoppable generation. And how we create this product, so we first start with sport design.
We create product through the lens of sports design, where we elevate innovation, functionality, and modernity. We do this through the lens of universal, functional, elevated, and futuristic product. You've seen. I walked you guys through the Echo a little bit today, but I want to take a little bit more of a deep dive into it because it's a new definition of bold and energetic style that is expressed in every way. Every detail on this shoe is crafted with purpose, blending a fresh new design with a sleek new modern look. It brings together a multi-layer translucent upper, strategically placed films, and monofilament mesh for depth and color blocking opportunities. It has a full-length premium HOVR midsole for next-level comfort. Once a consumer puts this on their foot, they're not going to want to take it off, and the Heartbeat logo is seamlessly integrated into the upper.
It has a unique design element that is elevated and highly functional. Echo redefines innovation, design, and technology for Under Armour. And in sports culture, we'll celebrate authenticity and nostalgia. Each one of the designs that comes out will be authentic. It'll be iconic. It'll be reinvented. And ultimately, it will have some nostalgia to it as well. I want to walk you through two new products that we have, first starting at the $110 in the court silo. This is an elevation of sport culture for the next generation. This versatile premium model fuses UA sportswear style with our unique brand DNA. You start to see how that Heartbeat logo starts to embrace the upper, but also gives you lockdown and support. The HB Low delivers dynamic basketball-inspired silhouette, featuring the iconic Heartbeat design woven into the upper with the midsole tech for all-day comfort.
And then last, at $140, we're going to introduce the Arc 96. And this shoe, to us, redefines style by fusing classic elements of 1996 with the vibrant energy of today's unstoppable generation. It's designed with the iconic logo at the core. It speaks to both heritage and innovation. It's crafted with a refined mix of textures, materials, and colors. The Arc 96 strikes the perfect balance between nostalgia and modernity. With that, I'm going to pass it back over to you, Yassine, to close this out. I want to thank you all for your time, your energy, and look forward to talking with you guys upstairs.
Didn't I tell you that the stage was set for 2025? The stage is really set for 2025. And leading to 2025 will be our pivotal season in the change of our design and innovation integration in our product.
But we know that we'll take time until we reset the whole product pipeline. And we'll do it in two ways. We'll have in fall into 2025, we will focus on premiumizing our brand through innovation and design and technology. And you've seen some of the examples with Kyle and Yuron a minute ago. And then the halo effect will come in spring summer 2026, where we're focusing on our good level and our commercial product to complete the reset of our brand and our product organization, sorry. I just want you to leave with three takeaways. You've seen we've transformed our product engine. We looked at our SKU. We look at our material. We look at how efficient we can become. We redefine our design language and integrate the logo into something that is not just a branding, but a design element.
This new product organization and this new product language really led us to have new conversations with our accounts, with our partners, whether it's on DTC partners or wholesale partners. It's new conversations that are happening, new opportunities for us going forward. We believe in the power of product, and we believe that our organization will change the course of our brand. Thank you very much.
All right. That will conclude the first part of the day. We'll take a quick break right now. It is 10:32 A.M. If we could be back on stage in the room here, let's say 15 minutes. I'll tell you too, we're going to open up these doors here. It goes right into Chelsea Market. There's only one bathroom in this place upstairs. So if you're a bathroom...
Now taking the stage, Executive Vice President of Brand Strategy, Eric Liedtke.
There you go, huh? I wasn't quite prepared for the suddenness of that announcement. I apologize for my tardiness. How's everybody doing today? You're refreshed? You're good? I appreciate you guys being here, as everyone else has. It means a lot. As Kevin said, this is our first one in a while. It's the first one for me, different brand, familiar setting. Some of you guys I've met in previous places, I think. Introducing myself, I'm a 30-year veteran in the industry, 26 years with a competitor, had a little bit of success there. I quit in 2019 to start a plant-based startup to try to pioneer a material revolution in this industry. Super excited about that. Brought that with me here. People ask me why I've come to Under Armour, why now? There's a couple of questions I had upstairs. Oh, I need that. Yes, thank you very much. That's helpful.
Clickers are important in life when you're driving a PowerPoint. So people have asked me, why Under Armour, why now? Why at this point in your life? Well, a few times in life do you get to work with a founder who shares your vision for the brand, your vision for the people, and your vision for the world. And I think what I find here is I find that consistent. Kevin and I have known each other for quite some time. I think six years ago, I actually was doing some research. I think I actually met Kevin in 2010 at a Super Bowl, but he won't remember that because I was a young, up-and-coming guy, and he was a startup, telling me about cotton being the enemy. Anyway, my point is that Kevin and I have been talking.
Kevin said, "Hey, I like what you're doing with your startup. I need some help with Under Armour. Would you be willing to come in and figure out a deal with us?" And after a couple of months of talking back and forth, I was like, "Yeah, I've seen the issues that Under Armour is facing right now. I'm familiar with some of the settings, and I think I can help." So we made that marriage work, which brings me to you today. My official title is the Executive Vice President of Brand Strategy. It's a bit of a word salad, but ultimately, I'm in charge of overall strategy, which I'll talk to you briefly about today. I'm in charge of the operating model and how we work, and I'm in charge of basically chief marketing officer responsibilities or brand story.
And to get started, I'd like to kick off on just a couple of those and get them out of the way. So let's talk about operating model. An operating model in general is about how we work. So what I wanted to do in the first few months on the job is really dig into how we are working and listen to the employees, listen to my teammates, not only how we're working, but what we're working on and how we're holding ourselves accountable for winning. What I found was there's a ton of committed people. There's a ton of committed teams that are hungry to win. But I also found there's just too much ambiguity in decision-making and not enough accountability. As I said before, I've seen this. This is a very familiar playbook. This is a very consistent theme in function-driven companies.
Because when you're in a function-driven company, you basically do your job. Design hands it to product marketing, product marketing hands it to category marketing, category marketing hands it to sports marketing, sports marketing hands it to retail marketing, retail marketing hands it to the markets. It makes a lot of sense because you're functionally divided. What you get is a lot of people tossing things over the wall, and no one's accountable to win the consumer. So to drive accountability moving forward, we must organize ourselves against winning the consumer. That's all that matters in this industry. You've got to win runners. You've got to win basketball players. You've got to win football players. You've got to win people that train. That is what we're out here to win.
So in the new year, we're going to shift from a function-driven organization to a category and consumer-driven organization, and holding each and every business unit that we're going to form with general managers responsible for winning their consumers. Okay? You'll hear more about that in the months to come, but that's a big move for us from how we operate. The second thing I'm working on is the strategic business plan. So now we've got how we operate. Now let's talk about what we operate on. This is really defining what does winning look like? What's that upper right hand of the whiteboard look like? Where are we going? Where are we trying to drive to? Right? And we're writing that plan as we speak. It's going to really give people a destination in mind.
And I'm not a rower, but I like this expression of maybe some of you guys are Ivy League. You row in whatever that river is in Boston that you guys row in. But the point is getting all oars in the water at the same time. I think that's important to winning and going the same direction. Right? That's what a strategic business plan is in a simple sense. It's a little longer than a race, but it's important to do that. So that's what we're going to do with our strategic business plan. And again, with Lance's permission, I hope to share that with you in the coming year. But we should be operating against that strategic business plan for fiscal year 2026, which starts in April. Okay. That's a little bit of house cleaning of what I do.
Let's get to the fun stuff, the story, the brand story. Spend the rest of my time talking about how we tell our story. You've heard great, great product things today. The guys did a great job saying how they pivoted the design team, the innovation team, and the product teams to creating better, more compelling products. My job today is to tell you guys we're coming right up to that at the same timeline with great brand storytelling. Okay? One of the great opportunities we have today is our brand. As Kevin mentioned earlier, we're one of four that do what we do. Our brand has unbelievable strengths within us. And when we're at our best, we're not just great at product. We're great at telling stories and insights about ourselves and our products. Let's take a measure of where we are.
We're a global company with footprints across the geographies. And as natural with global companies, we have different places with different brands. We're at different positions with our brand in different geographies. North America, it's our home. It's our greatest history. We have our greatest strengths here from an awareness standpoint. We're building advocacy in the critical I-95 corridor, which is our home. EMEA, it's our rising star. You'll hear later from Kevin, but basically, you're hearing that we've got great awareness there, and we're starting to see some really green shoots coming out of key cities like London and Paris. APAC, we don't have as great awareness there as the other two markets. It's a huge opportunity for us to go on the offense and start to define who we are with a new consumer group. So we're really excited about how we look at those three things.
In the last few months, we started to dive into our consumer and do some qualitative research with all of those different regions. I want to tell you guys right now that the next few slides are going to be telling you guys right now how we are being perceived in the marketplace and what we're going to do about it. Because it's important for me that you guys understand that we get it. We know where the brand is today, and we have a plan to address it to create great brand advocacy going forward. So first and foremost, we are seen as a brand dedicated for individual athletes, people working hard for and by themselves. In short, we're seen as a training brand that goes into the gym. Second, we are a brand that SKUs male and specifically 34 plus.
It's because of that, and I think it's because of our strength as a younger brand that we were as the brand when we were strong when these kids were young that they've grown up with us and they still adhere to us. Three, we're viewed as tough and intense, almost a little too aggro, almost a little too aggressive to win today's Gen Z's and Gen A's. And fourth, we're thought of as a performance-centric brand, a brand for their moments of training and competition because we make great, great product, second to none, but not really extending off the field. Okay? So going forward, we're going to change all that. We're going to change the way athletes think of us. One, we're going to show them that we're more than individuals, that we're dedicated team athletes, people motivated by something more than themselves.
Yes, we're a training brand, everybody. That's important. We were born from training, but we were born as a compression brand. We're Under Armour. We were born in team sports. We need to get back to owning the team athlete that plays in those team sports in every sport we participate in. Second, we will express the brand in a way that is young and fresh and not just male, not just aggressive, but caters to both male and female equally. And there's a huge opportunity there, especially with our great product we have coming up. Third, we're going to channel the energy of the brand into something that comes through as determined, passionate. Yes, still a little tough and intense, but dare I say, fun and lighthearted as well.
And fourth, we will demonstrate how Under Armour levels up an athlete's cred, both on and off the field, helping them look, feel, and play their best. And this is really important because we need to give them permission to wear us in the streets and hallways, recognizing the culture of sport doesn't stop when you leave the pitch, doesn't stop when you leave the court. It goes with you into the hallways, into the music venues, into the streets. So how do we do that? We focus on the right consumer. We focus on the influencers. We focus on really getting those qualitative people that we know how to identify and get that can translate both on and off through their unique charisma, followership, and influence. So just in summary, we get it.
Now, the question you might be asking yourself, I'm asking myself, well, how do we change these perceptions? Good question. We need to aim for the heart, not the head. What do we mean by that? What do we mean by that? I'm a big believer, as many of you will understand, in aiming for the heart, not the head. The great ones do this because we want athletes to love us and emotionally connect with us. And we don't do that through irrational conversations. We don't want them just to understand us. We want them to love us. Most brands in this space, most brands in general, they lead with the head. They have a very rational conversation with their consumers. Great brands, special brands, they lead with the gut. They might be a little fun. They might be a little provocative.
But the legendary brands, the ones you remember forever, like that special teacher you may have had in grade school or junior high that you understand, they lead with the heart. They connect with you on an emotional level. They're the ones that you remember forever because they understand that they get me and I get them when you connect with them. And that's our job. Our job as a brand is to really connect with consumers' hearts. The good news is we were always built from the heart. Now, this is what we call room takeover. I would invite you to look at all the different communication going on. That's a Click-C lack spot. What did that do to connect with football players? It was the last sound you hear before you cross onto the field. Click-C lack. I think you hear us coming.
Click-C lack, I think it's just or a challenged ballerina that showed unbelievable self-determination in breaking through the barriers that were presented to her. Or my favorite, the best swimmer in the world coming off record-breaking Olympic Games, dealing with the challenges of being the best, right? Of being the best and maintaining the best. These spots as a competitor, I saw as something that could really change the game. I sat at my former brand and looked at these guys as a competitor that was allowing them to connect with the heart in different ways. It was inspired by simple yet powerful insights. And it showed that UA was a brand that got sport, got the work, and understood the heart that was required. We haven't done this level of work in a few years. We need to get back to this work.
It all starts with the consumer. We are laser-focused on team sports. We are a brand that was born in team sports. We are manically focused on winning the hearts of the 16 - to 24-year-old team athlete. As I mentioned earlier, we've been speaking to them a ton the last few months. I know this may be a little too much for you guys, but I want you to understand the brick-by-brick logic that we're applying to how we approach the problems we face in the market. I want you to look at this video and take a look at what the kids are telling us, and I'll come back with a few observations. I'd appreciate if you would take your own as well.
My game is nothing without my faith, confidence, commitment. I probably say my speed, my right foot, my coaches, my flashiness, my boys, my teammates. They're everything to me. My team. Work on three. One, two, three. Work. Ladies roll. Go three. One, two, three. Ladies roll. They kind of uplifted me. I wasn't sure I was going to even make varsity. Together. I love these boys. I cry with these boys. Blood, sweat, and tears with these boys. I love them. You feel me? You got it. You got me. I feel my best when I'm in my zone. My shoes are fresh. I'm in the mood. I'm in the rhythm. When my mentality is up, when my dog is out, we're all moving as one cohesive unit. Keep going. Keep working. When my team is down.
Outside of sports, I am someone who continues to work hard in school and tries to be the best person I can for my family. I surround myself with positive energy. I'll rather be back for Dallas. I swear. I just play ball. In my future, I see greatness. I'm always thinking about others and how I can be kind and lift each other up. There's a lot of underdogs in my city and a lot of people that's unappreciated and not seen for their talent. So for me to put my city and my school, most importantly, on the map, I'm very happy to do so. I know I am a leader. I am a dog. The goat. I know I am the next generation. And I know I'm going to be great. All right. Three. One second.
I know I'm special, and one day the whole world will see.
What'd you guys hear? I'll tell you what I heard. It's a rhetorical question because I don't expect you guys to shout it out. I'm not sure I was going to make varsity. I believe in myself. My city, my team is an underdog. If I look good, I feel good, I play good. These are qualitative soundbites that can come in and help us inform our storytelling both around the brand and around the products we make. The good news is we are already connecting with these athletes through our Under Armour Next program. UA Next is Under Armour's global grassroots program focused on athletes, performance, and making the next generation of athletes even better.
We're in six countries, in U.S., EMEA, and APAC, touching more than 23,000 athletes personally over three four-day events, driving connections with athletes across a multitude of sports and introducing ourselves, our products, our innovations, our services, and our stories to them, to the next-gen athletes. The good, cool thing is also they get something from us. We shine a massive light on them, helping them level up and giving these underdogs an opportunity to show their skills, their appreciation. This all culminates in UA Next All-American Game here in the States in January in Orlando with 100 football players and 28 female volleyball players broadcast live on ESPN. Think about what we can do with that as we start to sharpen our message. Think about what we can do with that as we start to tell them our story, our unique story, and our positioning.
That's the exciting part, so while UA Next gives us a platform to communicate, what we communicate comes down to our positioning and how we speak to them. We are a brand that understands the underdog. We see ourselves as an underdog, but we need to make sure this resonates very clearly in 16- to 24-year-old speak. Those of you with children at home know 16- to 24s talk a little differently. I'm constantly being educated on that, so we spent, again, all this time with them understanding them, and while they share the underdog position of what I call having a chip on your shoulder, and they are all underdogs, they see themselves as like, it isn't always for the same reason. The red line is that they see themselves as undiscovered. They see themselves as unknown. They see themselves as underestimated.
They have complete and utter self-belief in themselves, but they have something to prove because they haven't been recognized. Think about the undrafted free agent. Think about Jaylen Warren first on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sorry, I got to go Pittsburgh Steelers at some point in my presentation versus a Najee Harris, first-round draft pick versus undrafted free agent. For those fans in the NFL, you'd say they probably are equal on the team. He's got a chip on his shoulder. He plays every play with that chip on his shoulder. One of great desire. Think about the walk-on athlete. We were founded by a walk-on athlete. You probably saw it in the videos earlier. Our brand is that walk-on athlete. That's the chip we carry on our shoulder each and every time. It's about how we position ourselves to connect with those consumers out there they want.
They aren't expected to do anything. They're warm-ups, camp arms, or fodder for the better athletes and teams that they go up against. That's the underdog's chip, right? A woman's South Carolina player said it in the video best. She said, "I know I'm special. I know I'm special." And one day, the whole world will see it. The whole world will know it. That's super rich, qualitative insights that one underdog brand sees in its consumers. Because when underdogs win, when underdogs win, they break the status quo. They're a disruption to the system because they can come in and just be the unexpected. And I see a lot of heads nodding out there because you guys all appreciate it in your own lives, what you've overcome to get in this place right now. When we connect with them, when one underdog connects to another, they feel seen.
They feel heard. And most importantly, they feel represented. It's authentic. It's us. It's who we've always been. And it was going to show up in everything we do, all of our creation efforts from product to services to stories moving forward. When we do this right, when we do this right, we will not just win their hearts. We'll start with their heart, but our job is to then win their minds and their wallets as well. And this positioning, I can tell you from experience, this positioning is so critical. It's so critical to connect with our consumers at that emotional level. It's also so very hard. Again, 30 years in the industry, multiple brands, I can tell you positioning is the secret sauce of success. I ran two major brands. One had a great positioning as the creator sports brand.
One, as much as I tried, we could not figure out a positioning. They had very, very different financial successes. So how are we going to bring this positioning to life? We're going to bring it to a multi-year brand platform that will be unveiled starting next year. A campaign focused on building advocacy for our brand like never before. It will be our biggest marketing investment in a long, long time, showing the consumer we're here to stay and connecting with them in a consistent fashion across multiple channels. This campaign will include two major chapters: Reasons to Love Us and Reasons to Buy Us. Let's talk about each one. Reasons to Love Us. This is focused on creating brand awareness, brand advocacy, if you will, upper funnel activity. If we go to APAC, this is our introduction to the brand when we talk about new consumer groups.
We talk about getting them to understand Under Armour in a unique and compelling way that they can identify with, right? Building that brand advocacy and cutting through, connecting with team athletes' hearts through the shared insights of this underdog disruption to the system positioning and giving them a reason to, yes, love us and win their heart. The second fundamental part is giving them reasons to buy us. Again, this is the connecting then to the mind, the rational side, and the wallet. This is how we get from their hearts to their heads. Let's be honest. Our industry makes too much stock. That's pretty much been proven. No one needs a new hoodie. No one needs a new tracksuit. No one needs a new pair of shoes. Our job as brand people is to create objects of desire.
How do we get them to desire our product that they must have it, right? It's a simple formula, but really hard to do. The formula goes like this: product times story times distribution plan. Product. What do we mean by that? Born from a performance or cultural insight. Story. Innovation, materials, collabs. You saw great examples today. NEOLAST was a great example of a compelling innovation story. You saw Mansory, great example of a collab story to us, how we drive that forward. And finally, distribution. You've got to build these products and stories with a distribution destination in mind. When one of these elements is a zero, the whole thing gets wiped out. If you build a great product and story, but you sell it to the wrong distribution, done.
If you build a product without a story, it doesn't work out because no one needs a new pair of shoes. You've got to create these objects of desire. So our new operating model will allow the general managers of each of those business units to own all three of these aspects. That's another fundamental reason I want you to take away from this, and their job will be to bring a relentless flow of objects of desire to market each and every season, and we tell those stories then with our reasons to buy, bring it all the way back. We then bring that all together, whether it be within partnership to a retailer or ourselves, to give them a compelling reason to buy by marketing it against this brand campaign in that area. Make sense? Head nods will do. Okay, great. All right. Thank you.
So that's it for me. I mean, short, sweet, 90 days in. I hope it was compelling. You guys can apply later. But we'll leave you with three key takeaways, all right? Because maybe you weren't paying attention. But anyway, we are changing our operating model. I've said that a couple of times. From function-led to consumer-led, moving from a culture of consensus to a culture of accountability. Two, in 2025, we will introduce a unique brand positioning around the underdog. As the underdog brand, we will be a disruption to the system, and we will connect with all consumer underdogs out there, which is a vast majority of our 16- to 24-year-old athletes. Number three, this brand positioning will be expressed through the most impactful brand campaign in our company's history. We have the product. We have the positioning. We also have the money. We've alw ays had the money.
We just need to spend it a little smarter and more impactful for the brand. Thank you very much. I'd like to hand it over now to a video read from APAC.
Joining us now from Shanghai, Managing Director of APAC, Jason Archer.
Good morning and greetings from Shanghai. I'm Jason Archer, the Managing Director of the APAC region, a role I've held for half of my 12 years here at Under Armour. I'm excited to kick off the regional section of today's investor meeting. The way we show up in APAC is a premium, innovative, performance-lead sports brand, and today, I will provide an overview of our region, including the market context, our strategy centered around product, story, and service. Let me start with the context.
The total addressable market size is approximately $90 billion across the region and expected to grow at a mid-single-digit rate over the next five years. Under Armour's market share is currently approximately 2% across APAC, with China and South Korea just under 2%, Japan at 3%, and Australia at 4%, highlighting the opportunity ahead of us. In our most recent consumer research, the Under Armour brand is perceived as performance-driven, highly functional, suitable for sweating, and professional with a team spirit, allowing us to build upon the heritage and strength of our global positioning, ensuring a strong positioning in Asia. This sets the stage for our focus going forward. As a relatively young brand in the region, unaided brand awareness ranges from the mid-teens to the high 20s. Some of the best news is consideration for Under Armour purchase is high, ranging from the mid-30s to over 50%.
And especially in China, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us. Additionally, our size allows us to be nimble, react to market trends, and continue to build awareness at the top of the funnel. To drive performance, we will focus on our strengths and core categories from a product perspective. This includes continuing to win in training, our stronghold while building authority in run and expanding our basketball business, leveraging our global ambassadors led by Stephen Curry. As it relates to sportswear, our consumer also continues to ask us to show up in more off-court, off-pitch, and off-field wearing occasions, leaving sportswear one of our most significant global opportunities, especially here in the region. Additionally, our product positioning in the region over-indexes on the better-best segment of the pyramid, driving the highest price and most premium products we offer.
We will maintain this focus as a core tenet of our strategy going forward. Pivoting to story, Under Armour as a Sports House and podium brand, together with our athletes, teams, and existing partnerships, we plan to utilize our unique position as the underdog to empower athletes to compete at their highest level. This is demonstrated through our numerous strategic partnerships across the region, including the UA Combine, which solidifies our position in training, our UA Next development activations across the region, and on the field of play with partners like the Sydney Football Club, China's national three-on-three basketball teams, and many other relationships with strong, locally relevant athletes and sports. We also recently invested in ISC in Australia to significantly increase Under Armour's grassroots team sports presence.
This investment demonstrates our commitment to authenticity and is in line with our strategy of ensuring we build a strong team sports foundation globally. This summer, we hosted the Under Armour Curry Brand tour in Asia. Stephen Curry returned to China for the first time in five years, accompanied by De'Aaron Fox, and I can say the response was overwhelmingly positive, with unbelievable crowds and energy in every city on the tour, demonstrating the passion of the Chinese consumer and the power of sport. Fans were engaged at all levels during the tour, which included the world's first Curry retail store, a dedicated tour product line, digital amplification throughout the journey. This was demonstrated by approximately 19 million fans watching the live streaming of the grand finale and over four billion impressions during the tour. In summary, it was a resounding success with a discernible uptick in key brand metrics.
We'll continue to build on this success across the region. We also continue to build brand love and affiliation with our more than 10 million loyalty program members across the region. Here, we're not only focused on attracting new consumers, but engaging existing consumers through a rich offering of sweat equity, member-exclusive events, Member Week, and other benefits, as well as a consistent omnichannel communication and service approach. Turning now to service, we've built a diverse distribution network across the region to serve consumers, and we're clear about our focus on China as a must-win market. Currently, China accounts for about half of the region's revenue, and we expect this number to continue increasing as we scale the business in the years ahead.
In Japan, we're working with our long-standing licensee to leverage our core brand strengths of performance and team sports, while South Korea remains a critical market for UA as an influential cultural and trend hub, and finally, in Southeast Asia and Oceania, we'll continue to invest in crucial strategic wholesale partnerships and distributors to evolve our brand footprint in addition to the established retail presence. Approximately 80% of revenue in APAC comes from Under Armour-branded retail experiences and online platforms in a DTC-first model. In fact, globally, of our 2,000 Under Armour-branded stores, about 1,400 of them are in APAC across 15 countries. Moving forward, we plan to drive improvements in same-store productivity with a strong focus on retail excellence and select new store openings.
In the digital space, we've tailored our approach to resonate with local consumers on key marketplace platforms such as Douyin, Tmall, JD, WeChat, as well as undera rmour.com. We will continue to focus on marketplace management and premium online positioning while prioritizing full price, higher margin revenue. So let me leave you with just three takeaways about Under Armour's APAC business. These include our strong brand positioning, the ethos of serving athletes and customers, and how we believe these elements will help shape our ability to drive profitable, quality revenue growth in the years ahead. First, we must continue to protect the brand and use the near-term dynamic macro environment, especially in China, to elevate our channel discipline and ensure that revenue quality stays premium relative to other brands.
This is our time to set the brand's future by using new local-for-local products and our positioning as a premium Sports House to create demand and inspire brand choice. Second is to continue to obsess athletes. Using the global brand relaunch to elevate our awareness and drive engagement across train, run, and basketball, we'll leverage the strength of our global ambassadors and elevate our strong local presence in and out of competition to grow our sportswear business simultaneously. Winning in footwear will be our relentless focus, and we have the shelf space to do it. Third, we remain bullish about our long-term horizon. As we navigate some of the near-term dynamics, our smaller size will allow us to stay nimble. Certainly, based on sheer market size alone, we continue to have a massive opportunity to pursue growth.
Along the way, our consumer-first strategies and direct retail connection give us a strong platform on which to build. Pulling it all together, we're excited about the brand's future opportunities in APAC as we work to refocus and maintain our premium brand positioning while building for the future. Thank you. I appreciate your time today.
Now taking the stage, President of the Americas, Kara Trent.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here with us today. My name is Kara Trent, and it's a privilege to stand before you, not only recognizing some of the work from all of our teammates back in Baltimore, but to share the progress that we've made, the lessons that we've learned, and more importantly, the exciting path that we've charted for our future.
I've been with Under Armour for almost 10 years because it was a small entrepreneurial company that felt bigger than the biggest athletic brands, with an underdog mentality and grit to win, and I am still with Under Armour today because of the core values and beliefs that we have based in the idea of progress over perfection. The values that acknowledge that the hard work and sweat needed to be successful, but don't come without mistakes or failures. I had the pleasure of spending the past five years in Europe helping to build our brand and business in the EMEA region. That experience was a refreshing reminder every single day of the strength of our brand, the role that we play in sport, the importance of our origin in American team sports, and the power of our logo.
I come back to America with this reminder and the very simple idea that being exactly who we know we are, grounded in the foundation of which we were born, is the basis for which we'll write this next chapter and capture the opportunity that sits before us in the Americas. As Kevin said, this logo, our logo, symbolizes balance. Taken as a metaphor, it also represents the equilibrium and focus necessary for us to reshape our brand in our largest market. Because unfortunately, the reality is we've been anything but balanced or focused, and we have not taken care of our brand. We've lacked clarity of offer and clear segmentation in the market. We've been over-reliant on discounting and promotions. We've lacked consistency in brand positioning and in brand investment, and we've lacked dimensionality in our portfolio.
Said more simply, we have lost focus on who we are as a brand, and we have lost focus on the athletes that we service. These realities have weighed heavily on us. They've weighed heavily on our performance, and they've detracted from our potential. But Under Armour, we have always been a disruptive brand. And in this next chapter, these lessons help shape a clear and actionable plan grounded in athlete obsession to disrupt the landscape and our playbook to win. The opportunity ahead of us is immense. With a $200 billion total market opportunity across the Americas landscape, we see significant room for growth, particularly in the United States, where we currently hold around 4% market share. We believe our plan of balance and focus will drive dimensionality of our business and support our ambition of getting back to growth over the coming years.
This is a critical moment for our brand. We're not just looking to grow. This isn't about growth. We're looking to transform. We acknowledge that the road hasn't always been easy. We've faced challenges, and at times, we've strayed from our consumer-first principles, and we are under no misconception about this journey ahead or thinking that this will be a straight line, but today, today, I am proud to say that we have clarity, focus, and a solid plan to rebuild a premium, profitable, and sustainable brand for years to come. Now, I would love to take you through our strategic intentions and how we plan on addressing these imbalances through the lens of product, story, service, and team, starting with product. In North America, over the past six-plus years, we have been a brand that has traded predominantly on price, with too many undifferentiated things being available.
Our first priority is to drive greater clarity of offer to our athletes because we're not just selling products. We're creating experiences that inspire, connect, and endure. Focusing on fewer, better products with a more clear narrative, we will drive a deeper connection with the consumers and set the stage for sustained and profitable growth. As you heard from Eric and from Yassine, our shift to category management. This will help support our greater ambition to put the team sport athlete at the center of everything that we do. This will drive more significant focus on how we attack each category to meet the athlete's needs and, just as importantly, to win market share. Our starting point will be to reinforce our leadership position in team sports and performance innovation.
This is an area we know we have lost focus over the past years, but will be the foundation of authenticating Under Armour with the team sport athlete and will reinforce the credibility that we have as a Sports House. This focus, coupled with the product strategy that you heard from Yassine of infusing design and innovation across categories, will drive our ability to credibly expand beyond performance and training into categories that will provide tremendous opportunities for growth, like running, footwear, and sportswear, allowing the athlete the permission to wear our products off the field, court, and pitch. We are simplifying, simplifying our assortments and therefore the consumer experience. Less clutter, more clarity. We will reduce SKUs that drive duplication and do not have a clear reason for being, shifting resources and investments into our franchises, innovations, and energy stories that drive newness and differentiation.
This new rhythm, this heartbeat of launches, will help us to deliver newness and excitement across every touchpoint that we have the opportunity to interact with our athletes. And we are committed, committed to driving discipline and sophistication in how we segment and differentiate our products for the consumer. Every category, channel, and account will have a defined role supported by a clear product strategy and tailored product offerings. By implementing a good, better, best framework across channels, we will deliver energy, elevation, and core franchises that enhance the consumer experience while minimizing assortment overlap to ensure intentionality and alignment with our premium brand aspirations. Defining the role and prioritization of categories, optimizing assortments to drive intentionality with our line, and disciplined segmentation to drive clear differentiation across our account landscape will allow us to drive focus and clarity of offer to the consumer through the market like never before.
After great products, you need to be able to tell a great story. And so after spending significant time in the market with our accounts, customers, and consumers, the great news is no one is mad at us, but they might be slightly confused or slightly indifferent to us because we have not been clear on who we are, nor have we spoken to them in a meaningful or the right way. For us to be successful, we must drive a clear and consistent narrative to athletes to build brand love. We will do this by repositioning the brand through the lens of the underdog, as you heard from Eric, by focusing on the team sport athlete, by being seen and heard in sport and sport moments, and by driving elevated experiences both digitally and physically.
The cornerstone of our storytelling will be clarifying who we are, who we are for, and why we exist. We must reprogram our mindset to understand that the consumer experience does not start with those who purchase our products. It starts with our story. We must reclaim our high ground. We are a brand built on passion, a brand originated on the fields of American team sports, football, baseball, lacrosse, a brand built on innovations that solve athletes' problems. Selling product will become the result of having athletes understand that they are buying into something more significant because we don't just sell shirts and shoes. We sell passion, a belief that through hard work and determination, every human can be greater than any headline that could be written, and Under Armour products give them the ability to achieve this.
But to do this effectively, not only do we need to be clear that this is who we are, but we need to be focused and present where this athlete exists. We've been too focused on transactional, commercial moments rather than the times and places where this consumer can interact with our brand. Instead of focusing our spending solely on peak consumer shopping moments like back to school and holiday, we will diversify our communication and our tactics to be seen and heard during sport moments that will support amplifying our brand story. Connecting our positioning to our athlete will support our final objective of elevating experiences both digitally and physically. We have historically been extremely one-dimensional in our approach to marketing, focusing solely on the brand but not connected to the product, or focusing exclusively on the product but not connected to the brand.
We will now begin to develop a holistic, integrated plan focused on driving a brand narrative that showcases our athletes and teams, featuring franchise and innovation storytelling that captures the hearts and minds of consumers at retail. We know the formula. We have the portfolio of teams and athletes. We have the product franchises and innovations, and we have the platforms established to drive meaningful experiences. But now we must deploy our spends differently and execute integrated stories that drive connection to this younger athlete and do this at a level of impact and repetition like never before. This approach will require a flip, a flip in our investment strategy to be more balanced. We will move from over-reliance on lower-funnel performance or channel marketing, which is more transactional, to a more balanced approach across the entire marketing funnel that drives awareness, consideration, and conversion.
We will scale this nationally, but also drive a hyper-local approach for our athletes. By reclaiming our identity as a brand built on passion, innovation, and belief, we are redefining how we connect with our consumer on the field, in the moment, and through every story that we tell. This renewed focus on clarity, relevance, and integrated experiences will transform indifference into brand love, ensuring we inspire and empower athletes to achieve greatness beyond the products. So as we move into service and in support of our actions described in product and story, comes the requirement of running an integrated marketplace and rebalancing our portfolio across consumer touchpoints. As we consider creating meaningful experiences for the consumer across the market, you'll hear a common thematic, a thematic around elevating, optimizing, and simplifying while focusing on the quality of revenue that we drive as the output.
With a long history of being overly promotional in our DTC business, we know we have been driving the lowest common denominator in the market. So when we set forth for this year, we had to start within our own four walls, starting in e-commerce, the easiest, quickest way to see our brand. Starting this year, we've become focused on being more premium and less promotional. This starts with removing promotional revenue from our plans but relies heavily on site mechanics and experience. We have worked to simplify our navigation and storytelling while ensuring clarity on product benefits and elevating our product imagery. Our newly established loyalty program focuses on enhancing the consumer interaction with our brand through experiences and activities connected to all of our teams and all of our athletes. Within Brand House, the brief is simple. We're working to make shopping more easy.
Our stores had become overwhelmed with too many products and needed more clarity for the customer on what mattered, more importantly, what makes our products unique. We have built the physical manifestation of Sports House with our new flagship retail store at our headquarters, and this experience focuses on elevating our stories and being declarative about the franchises and innovations that should matter to the athlete. Let's take a quick spin. This concept will be our beacon expression across all new stores and will be scaled across our current fleet with the same guiding principles of simplifying the consumer experience and amplifying the interaction with our brand. In Factory House, our largest DTC business, we will elevate this experience as well while optimizing across the fleet. We've implemented a tiering strategy, being more intentional about the role that each individual store will play.
We've reduced our assortments to drive a greater clarity of offer and to allow for more depth in the products that matter. And we are highly focused on operational excellence, both front of house and back of house, to ensure that we are delivering on profitability. And finally, within wholesale, we have a tremendous opportunity to add greater dimension to our portfolio, gaining greater access to the team sport athlete while shifting the perception of our brand. We have declared our strategic partners, and more importantly, we have made sure that they know they are our strategic partners. And we will continue to work with each of them to shift the quality of our revenue through our consumer-focused merchandising principles and revised demand creation marketing approach.
Over the coming years, we'll continue to amplify our current strategic partnerships while adding new distribution channels to the mix based on the consumers that we are targeting. By elevating experiences, simplifying touchpoints, and optimizing across every channel, we are transforming the way consumers interact with our brand, ensuring every connection is meaningful, intentional, and aligned with our commitment to quality and innovation. Together, these efforts position us to drive sustainable growth and redefine what it means to lead an integrated marketplace. Last, and certainly not least, is our continued focus on elevating our leadership and integration across the Americas business. This is about our teammates, the greatest assets that we have. This journey is guided by structural changes and strategic headcount investments, blending the deep institutional knowledge among our current team with fresh perspectives from key external hires in critical roles like marketing and wholesale.
With a clear strategy in place to move the business forward, we have taken purposeful steps to build a culture that reconnects our team with the passion and purpose that brought them to this brand in the first place. By fostering an environment that balances accountability with creativity, we're bringing fun back to the business, celebrating wins, and encouraging our teams to innovate. We're focused on moving at a decisive pace, empowering our people to act quickly with a fail-fast mindset, understanding where risks are seen as opportunities to learn and to grow. And at the heart of this transformation is a commitment to healthy debates where diverse perspectives are encouraged, ensuring that every decision we make is well-informed and collaborative. Together, these efforts are driving a culture of agility, a culture of engagement, and a culture of excellence that positions us for long-term success as a team.
In closing, I would love to leave you with three takeaways about our Americas business, and more specifically, North America. We will drive consumer discipline, putting the team sport athlete back at the center of everything that we do. We will own our narrative, own our story, because we're the only ones who can tell it, and we haven't been, and we will manage an integrated marketplace like never before. Our journey forward will require us to move with intention to drive balance and focus across all aspects of our brand and business, while continuing to ensure that we align our financial aspirations to our brand ambitions. We are on offense as we look to stabilize and strengthen Under Armour as a coveted premium performance brand for the team sport athlete.
Though early in our reset work, I'm pleased with the progress being made every single day and believe that the strategies I've outlined for you here today are the basis of reconstituting our brand strength in this region and positioning us to drive sustainable and profitable growth over the long term. I thank you very much for your time and attention. I wish you and your families a lovely holiday season. Cheers.
Joining us now from Amsterdam, Managing Director of EMEA, Kevin Ross.
Hello everyone and greetings from Amsterdam. I'm Kevin Ross, the Managing Director for EMEA Region. I'm proud to have served in various roles with the Under Armour family for nearly 10 years, and I've never been more excited about the brand's potential in this market.
Our EMEA business shows up a little different than what you may see in North America, including a premium positioning in the marketplace. In this overview, I'd like to cover three things. Number one, a look at the brand momentum and business success we've had in this region. Number two, a look at the market and the opportunity we are pursuing. And number three, an outline of the strategic steps we're taking to capitalize on these opportunities. So let's jump right in. The EMEA region for the last few years has delivered consistent brand-right quality revenue growth. With a focus on building the brand and a discipline to execute, the region is close to doubling its revenue since 2020.
This is a direct result of harnessing the strengths of the Under Armour brand as a Sports House, staying focused on team sports, utilizing a disciplined go-to-market strategy, and appropriately constraining our growth to protect our brand, as Kevin mentioned earlier today. That said, we remain humble and hungry. We recognize that more work must be done and that there's tremendous opportunity to scale the brand further in this important market. Next up is the total addressable market and our field to play. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa region represents an $80 billion market opportunity. Today, Under Armour is available in 71 countries in this market where we engage with incredible wholesale partners and direct distributors, plus our company-owned brand and factory stores, along with a growing country-specific e-commerce platform that includes 28 company and partner-owned websites.
In this complex region, we must remain focused on where and how we want to win. With a clear intent of driving brand heat and, more importantly, profitable growth, we are laser-focused on winning young athletes in four key markets: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain. In an $80 billion market, these four strategic countries account for 40% of the total opportunity, so at a clip of just over $1 billion, our current market shares remain relatively low. In France, Germany, and Spain, our market share is at or below 2%, and in the United Kingdom, it's more than double that at about 5%, so let me explain the significant difference and why it matters. It's no accident that we've seen success in the United Kingdom.
Over the last three years, we've doubled down on strategic brand investments while maintaining discipline about where we will and won't do business, both from a channel and from which to apply to other parts of the region as our midterm strategy. With a proven formula and the Sports House, we've been strengthening the Under Armour brand and have never been more confident about our ability to accelerate our growth. As one of the few podium brands, we are present on the pitch, field, and court. Let's not forget that Under Armour is a brand born on the field to play. That gives us authenticity and credibility that other brands can only dream of. Finally, as you've heard, our Sports House foundation is built on the pillars of product, story, service, and team. Let me speak briefly about the first three.
Regarding products, the most significant change we facilitated was recently transitioning from a training-led brand to a team sports brand. It's not to say that our training-based strategy for driving results, especially in the U.K. over the past four years, wasn't right for the time because it was. But it is to say that with new products engineered at the intersection of performance and style to cover an athlete's full day, whether working out, competing, or expressing their individuality, we now lead with team sports and the ability to dress athletes across the entirety of their day, meeting their and our customers' broader demands. As I highlighted, a large part of our success in the U.K. has been a committed investment in brand building and storytelling, a simple, repeatable formula that is now in play across Europe.
Investing in full-funnel brand campaigns, best-in-class channel marketing, acquiring world-class, locally relevant sports marketing assets, and activating unique Under Armour athlete experience, such as UA Next, will empower us to scale quickly in the market. Last is service, specifically wholesale and DTC excellence and how we serve athletes whenever and wherever they choose to engage with the Under Armour brand. As KP stated, we've been working intensely with our key partners to ensure that they know they are indeed key partners. We've hosted partners here in Amsterdam and recently returned from Baltimore, where we immersed retailers through our unique Under Armour culture in our new Sports House. Regardless of where we've met, the feedback has been consistent. They're excited about our expanded category offense and the new products and innovations the consumer demands. But it's not just existing customers we're excited about.
We are welcoming brand-right, new retail partners in all markets. One of the many things that excites us is our new disruptive entry into footwear. There are categories historically referenced as footwear-led, such as football, running, and sportswear. Athletes, both on and off the field, typically start their curation from foot to head, and we're now very much part of this conversation. In this respect, footwear represents our most significant long-term growth opportunity, especially given that our current footwear market share is less than 1% in any key market. In closing, I'll leave you with three takeaways as to where Under Armour's EMEA business is currently, including our strong brand positioning, ethos on how we serve athletes and customers, and how we believe these elements will help shape our ability to drive profitable, quality revenue growth in the years ahead. So number one, protect the brand.
The Under Armour brand is strong in EMEA. It is well-respected as one of the highest-performing athletic brands on the pitch, field, and court. And number two, service the channel. With a disciplined approach to protecting our brand through premium distribution and brand-right segmentation, we remain focused on service-level excellence and empowering our team to drive efficiencies as we continue to scale our brand in the years ahead. Patience, discipline, and fortification are the key. And last, eyes on the horizon. We have yet to play our best game in EMEA. Our ability to launch industry-leading product innovation with style getting stronger and our global storytelling getting meaningfully sharper next year, along with the prospect of our brand getting healthier in North America, all these components coming together means our future is very bright. And with that, I'll conclude my EMEA overview.
So cheers and enjoy the rest of your day.
Thank you. Now taking the stage, Founder, President, and CEO Kevin Plank.
Well, thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Jason, and thank you, Kara here for getting that regional look. I'd like to take the day, and we'll go through, so I think, the appropriate appreciation to the entire team that's been here. But I'd like to ground us first in what we've heard today and what we tried to accomplish. And there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into pulling one of these things off. And when we say that it's just going to be qualitative, I'm sure that can be frustrating at times. But the story that we have in place is something that we will stand up to every single day. We're proud of what we've got here.
And we know that if we put our heads down and do the right job, we're going to be incredibly proud of the result that comes from that with winning hearts and minds of 16- to 24-year-old team sport athletes. So let me go ahead and frame up, if I could, just some of the things that we heard, some of the foundational pillars that we began with: a product, story, service, and team, as we call it my job description. Those four foundational pillars, they still ring true today, 28 years later, because it was just that simplistic as I started the company in a little rowhouse in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. And I got to tell you, as the Founder and CEO of this brand, it does truly feel like a $5 billion startup again.
But my job is ensuring that we've got the right team in place to win in each of these four areas. And if we did nothing else today, I'm glad you had a chance to see and feel the energy from the people that we can now proudly say we put around the table to run and to drive this brand. But let me tell you how I'm thinking about the formula that we're going to have for success in addition to the team and the people. It starts with making great product. You heard from Yassine and Kyle and Yuron on how this brand will lead at the intersection of industry-leading innovation and breathtaking design. That's what we're meant to do. And if it felt a little footwear-heavy, it's because we think we get credit for being an apparel expert, and we can do that.
And there's plenty more of that comes from, as Kyle leaned into, really the most. But footwear, it does remain our largest opportunity. And we have put a team of experts around the table who flat out get it. Secondly, as we always say, the best product that we should be making as a company, it is and should be our story. With Eric at the helm now, just roughly 100 days in, I'll add the other 10 to him. We're excited about the team getting aligned around this category-focused structure in our operating model and our go-to-market. It really is going to be a game changer.
We're already much farther down the road on that path, announcing as well the fact that we're going to have a significant brand campaign to the sum of some two, three, or greater X of anything that we've done in our past history, telling the world who we are. Number one, you can only do that when you know who you are. So we've been able to articulate, and I've got something coming in a few minutes, which I think hopefully will leave you with the right message in your head, this idea of being the underdog and building product, the best product for them. As we say, we don't and are not a brand who innovates because we want to run up the score. We innovate on behalf of our athletes just to give them a fighting chance. That's the underdog spirit.
Third is providing great service. It's all the other pieces. Visiting with our key partners, as Kara said, making sure they know they're our key partners. This plan is underway in each of the three regions to stabilize our business and grow when we can as we take a disciplined approach to premiumizing this brand. Yes, that's right. We believe that we can premiumize this brand. We think we have every piece in place in order for that to happen, and matching, of course, the premium distribution and the brand-right segmentation that works for UA. We're encouraged by the progress that we've seen in EMEA and the opportunity we have there, and we're confident that in North America and APAC, we are in a bit of a reset right now, but we're on the path to profitable growth, and we know that we can get there as a brand.
Of course, fourth and finally, product story, service, and team. Well, ours is on the court, truly. I said this earlier. But we like our team, and we think that we have a team that is best in class that we certainly can win. And we know that is something that we have to prove it, and we will earn that from you. I love this team, and I know that this team wants to be excellent because there is a bit of a chip. There's a story behind each and every one of the experts that we've assembled around this table. Their why is very real. This collection of proven industry experts, it's hard to not end this day and just say, "Wait a second. If I'm looking at this brand, you got 28 years of history.
You have this authenticity and credibility into being a true sports house. I'll buy in. "There's only four. Maybe I could argue there might be five," but that's incredibly unique to have the pipes that we do and the ability to attract a group of experts with so many different perspectives across our industry, beginning with Yassine, an industry pro, 20-plus years, most of which was with Puma, where he ran Sports tyle and has a view, which is, again, I'd say, is a creative and a product visionary that I'm thrilled to have on our team and leading for us. Eric's experience, having run both all of product and all of marketing at one of our largest competitors, Adidas, having that glimpse into the building, and then also being able to do it as an entrepreneur with Unless.
And that really matters, breaking down from the big company and understanding what it means. Yuron's view across Jordan, Nike, and most recently, New Balance. As we said, John Varvatos is his view from fashion. Kyle Blakely's 17-year view of this brand from Under Armour. Plus, there's a whole bunch more of us who have nearly three decades of experience of seeing this brand in many different instances. And when you put those pieces together, and then you add the commercial aspect of what we've been able to build, but knowing that for every one of these experts who comes from another place is that we all are going to live under the mantra of the best idea will win. We're going to check the resumes at the door to make sure that we're long for Under Armour, that we're developing and building that culture.
And that's why things like moving into our new Sports House and turning that page are so powerful for us. And I mentioned the product expertise, but it goes without saying of the commercial expertise we have. And Jason Archer in APAC and Kevin Ross in EMEA for us and leading the region that Kara Trent came back here to the U.S. to lead for us because we needed those shoulders back, someone who's taken a market, which she did for us in EMEA, of driving from $600 million to more than $1.1 billion today. And these leaders are now roughly a year in the chair. We all sit here and look and just say, "This opportunity we have is very special." But this, of course, is only part of our team. And I can promise you the Under Armour team, the 16,000+, they're hungry to win.
They want to win. We're ready to win. We got the team. We got the strategy. We got the position. And we need to execute for you, so we understand that. But the infrastructure, for certain, is in place. So let me end today with just two very different things, but I think that matter. One example of how we're going to leverage some of these existing assets that we have, and I want to give you an example for that. And number two is going to be a muse. And we've actually held this out. It's the articulation that we have of exactly what do you mean when you say underdog, because we don't want it to get lost just in that word. And that's not the name of the campaign, but it's the idea of where we're going.
First, let me start with this concept of shrinking the battlefield. As underdogs, we have to do that. We have to find an edge. We have to find a way that we can put ourselves on even footing. This theme that I feel is really best articulated in something so real, and it happens to be this weekend, actually this Saturday, when yes, maybe only here in America. You may have heard a little over-indexing on football. I promise we love all the sports equally. It just happens to be football season. But when you look and you see there's a game that happens on Saturday that'll take place for the 125th time, and it's when the United States Military Academy and Naval Academy will play each other. It's a big deal because it's the only major college football game that's on television here in the U.S.
We happen to proudly outfit the Midshipmen, which is while our largest competitor outfits West Point. So right away, when you think about what does this mean, they have a team, and we have a team. They create a story to honor the institution in some way, and we do too. They make their uniform, then we make our uniform, which this year honor the flight squadron for the Navy called the Jolly Rogers. Then they go ahead and they make a video. Then we go ah ead and make a video. Ours is just a little better. See for yourself.
Born in the battles of World War II, the Jolly Rogers have been freedom's guardians of the sky. Forged by the United States Navy, victory is the standard. After eight decades, the new chapter in history will be written. If you hear them coming, fear the bones.
So they send in the Army, and we send in the Navy. And after all this, and then finally they play a game where one team wins and one team loses. But either way, on this day, Under Armour is able to shrink the battlefield. One day where we sit eye to eye. And in this instance, we just leveled our playing field. It's not five billion versus 50 billion. It's one to one. And this is just one example where we can do this. And there's 365 days a year, so we got a lot of other opportunities to figure this out. But we do believe that as we move ourselves more into the confidence of being comfortable in who we are, that we can win.
Being one of the four major sports houses means that this happens across multiple fields and courts on a constant basis for this brand. At the highest levels of competition, we're not going to win them all, but we're going to win some, and we're going to keep moving forward, and it'll be more than we won yesterday, and that constant progress, that kaizen is something that you can count on and expect from this brand, and what we've shown you today is meant to underscore that, A, we get it, and B, that we put the team in place. We're putting the strategy in the other pieces, and while nothing is overnight in life, we believe in the upside of the future of this brand.
Completing at this level, the vision, the execution, the opportunity, and most importantly, again, the team to grow from this place and continue getting better. So we expect to manifest this vision as a major Sports House, trading runways for tunnels in some instances, showcasing the incredible innovations of this dynamic product team. And if you haven't yet, to those of us here, I hope and encourage you to try that backpack on before you leave because it is a wow factor. To try that hat on because it is a wow factor.
And it's the things that we want people saying, not necessarily exactly what we do, shirts and shoes, but if they put this much time and thinking into a hat, into a backpack, it's getting the consumer to say, "I wonder what their shirts and shoes are like." Being and bringing a true sports understanding, and again, leveraging that authenticity into a much broader sportswear business for the brand. Secondly, the last thing I'm going to leave you with is this concept. We say that we stand for the underdog. And when I say that, I believe that we're, frankly, everybody has a story. But we have a story that's maybe unique or different that I think is important beyond just our business or where our brand is or how people see us or perceive us or how the market views us or not.
It's not lost on me, and I just want to share this. I walked out of here last night and getting in late yesterday, I just wanted to come see the venue. And I walked outside, and next thing I looked down the block, and there was the National Biscuit Company. The old NBC building was right next door. And ironically, the selection of this site, and I had no idea, is right on 15th and 10th. Well, that's the building where I built the first 500 shirts after the first seven prototypes that I had for UA and getting in a 1992 Ford Explorer in 1996 and driving to the Garment District and finding this manufacturer and convincing them to give me a shot of making these 500 shirts for me. And would he mind if I paid him just a few weeks later?
What that means, because sometimes in life we find ourselves as the underdog, is I had to convince that manufacturer to give me that chance. The team that was not picked to win of how that feels, not deemed good enough or cast away or counted out, but that's okay because, again, that is who we are. Now, we've had a lot of success. We've had hurdles and challenges, all kinds of things with us, but we are in this fight, make no mistake, and that we've proven that we're a brand that can get comfortable in ever being uncomfortable. It's cool to think that this brand who is telling you that we stand for the little guy because we authentically were one of them, like everybody has a story of where they've come from.
But the world needs to know, especially today, especially today, the world needs to know that that little guy actually has a chance that they can win. And so these examples, we need to win for lots of reasons. But for the kid that's sitting there and said, "No, it can never happen," we hope someday they can point at Under Armour and say, "Look at them." This is the last thing I want to share with you that sort of articulates, and maybe we could have started here and saved ourselves the last three hours because I think in 138 seconds, we're about to summarize everything we've been trying to convey or communicate to you. And that is this concept, which you're going to see is not a commercial. It's not for outside use.
So I apologize to all those at home, and you're going to have another 138 seconds from Kelsey Plum, and we got a different video we have for them because we didn't pay for the rights that you're about to see or the music. But we understand that this, I think, does just capture this brand, and I'm so proud. So following this, we're going to do some Q&A, but I want to thank you all for being here, and I think that you may hopefully get ready for a ride of goosebumps. Enjoy.
What's up, y'all? Kelsey Plum here back. Trying to tell you what you missed in New York today, but kind of ironic because I haven't missed anything today. Ooh, this video right here, this video got me. Powerful. Dang. Dang. Sick. It's all about that underdog spirit.
I mean, I kind of told you earlier, but this video lays it out clear cut. It's not a video. It's more of a muse. It gives Team UA something to shoot for. See what I did right there? Been an underdog? Overlooked? Underappreciated? Too small? Not big enough? Not respected? And you find a way to prove them wrong. That's an underdog to me. You got to be a dog to be able to go where you want to go. A dog is a mentality. It's a chip on your shoulder. It's a way to live your life. Nothing is given. You got to take it. Dawg Class, sponsored by Under Armour, kind of go hand- in- hand.
It's the idea that we're taking college girls that have aspirations to play professionally and showing them what it takes to be a pro, building that bridge, building that gap, and providing all the resources, mentorship, and just opportunities for them to shine. So Dawg Class is something that we do in women's basketball, but also that's what Under Armour has been doing at the grassroots level since the inception of the company. Bottom line, take it from me. I know what momentum feels like. And this brand, we got something going right here. And momentum paired with belief, look out. All right, y'all. I got to get back to my day job. Appreciate y'all watching. Looking out.
And with that concludes the paid portion of the day. Come on up. Let's grab some. There you go, Lance. Gamer. Thank you. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. All right, everybody. This one's.
There we go. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate this. We will switch to Q&A now, and we'll go ahead and take call. Jim, I'm going to pass this back to you. Pass it back. Thanks, Lance. Thanks, guys, for. Hey, Jimmy, can I hold you back for one second? Dave has a statement that he would like to make, please. Thank you. You're going to let me out of the box now?
Yeah. I've been waiting for. Qualitative. Just got quantitative. Go ahead, Dave. So yes, we are not really going quantitative here today with the Q&A or anything, but I did want to take a moment and just say we've been driving really well through the quarter. We feel good about where we are, and we feel good about where we are for the rest of the year.
So we are going to take this moment here and just reiterate the outlook that we gave back in November on our Q2 call for Q3 and also for the full year. So we're continuing to drive through, but we feel good about it. We're going to hold it there. So thank you, guys. With that, turn it back over.
Great. That was worth the wait. Thank you, guys, for the time today. Kevin, we really appreciate your passion. Appreciate you guys taking time to introduce us to the broader team. That's really valuable to us, so thank you all for being here. I love the clarity, love the focus, love the firepower you have to go out and tell the message. Let's talk about the message for a little bit. The team sports athlete, for years, this industry has been about the superstar, the aspiration of the superstar.
Have you done focus groups? Have you learned from that 16- to 24-year-old athlete that there's room for a story about team, room for a story about the underdog, and that's something that would resonate with them? Clearly, it's a differentiated message, but I'm curious your insights from that particular group. Jim, thank you. And maybe the best thing I can do to articulate the new golf swing that I feel like I've earned is, Eric?
Really? All right. So yeah, I think it's how you classify superstars, right? I think there's plenty of underdogs that have become superstars. I mean, the most famous is probably Stephen Curry. He was too small. He was too slow. He wasn't good enough. I don't even think he was drafted. There certainly wasn't a bidding war on him going into the NBA because I know that I pitched him from my other job, and Kevin came back and stole him after me. But I mean, I think there's riches in those things. We have to look for those kernels out there. It's not to move counterculture.
I think if you look at our depth of sports marketing assets, we have a ton of great qualitative assets, but they all need to be looked through this prism of where they come from going forward so we can tell a richer story than just, "Hey, look, they're great." And if you go through the Kelsey Plum story, you go through South Carolina basketball story, you go through Notre Dame football story, there are stories in there that can be told and will be told by us just with a slightly different position and maybe just celebrating their greatness.
You could also state your name and firm. That'd be great. Thank you.
Perfect. Thanks a lot. This is Alex Straton from Morgan Stanley. Kevin, I have one for you. You said that the brand will inflect before the business does. So maybe actually the whole group could answer it. What type of leading indicators are you looking for of this brand inflection before perhaps we see it in the fundamentals of the business?
I think it probably began with Dave's now got two decades under his belt at UA, but the other three that are up here with me as well is not only the phone calls, but the assuring phone calls that Kara isn't somebody who wasn't getting tried to be pulled from multiple other places, but making a proactive choice to not stay here, but to be here. You're seeing something in this brand and saying, "I want to be here." Eric Liedtke coming is a big deal as well. These, I think, are some of the leading indicators of it's hard to explain momentum, right? You can't describe it. You can't take a picture of it, but you can feel it.
I think it's something. What's happening at UA. I don't just say that naively because I look at the product that's coming. I look at the taste level that we've been able to establish. That was your team's number one job, is that I want you to raise the bar for us. It doesn't mean we're going to ignore and stick our nose in the air about selling $75 shoes, but it's, how about we take our very best designers and let's put them on the $75 shoes in addition to the Curry's and how we can really begin to express ourselves there. It feels really holistic, and especially at this time with what I talked about, the serendipity of moving into this building right now, of the ability for us to really turn the page on a great history on a number of fronts.
And a business has just been around for a long time, but our 28 years is very different than the other three that have taken 50 or 60 or 70 years to establish themselves at Sports House. And so I think we're ahead in the game and have a real opportunity. Eric, do you want to add anything on that?
Sure. I would just, being the new guy, I can always come in from an external perspective. The talent level we have from an innovation standpoint, the brand credentials is really second to none. And I want to make that very clear. I've been in the industry a long time, 30 years. And we have the product. I mean, no one's ever going to say, "I mean, the product is second to anything," especially when it comes to apparel. This guy, I've been an admirer of. I didn't know him.
I mean, we worked for a minute at Adidas together, but I mean, he's been killing it with all of the trend fashion houses on his own since he left Puma. I'm just talking about everybody wants to work with him. How Kevin landed him, I'll never know, but that's a story to be told another day, but when you combine that with Kyle's innovation, because Kyle's innovation Lighthouse, like we call it, I believe, is that laboratory is bigger than anything I've seen in the industry. So it's as big as a park. You combine that with aesthetic foresight in footwear, John Varvatos in apparel. I wasn't taking that for granted when I came in until I saw the product, and I was like, "Holy shit. The product's going to be there."
The brand storytelling needs to catch up, which is what I tried to illustrate for you today. And as we put those two things together, consumers are funny. There's no recipe. There's no timeline you can put on it. But I would say as we start to build these, we're going to do it very methodically. Thank you. Brick- by- brick. And what we tried to show you today was the first couple of bricks we're laying out there. What I love to say, and Kevin said it, and I'll say it again, is there's a lot of small brands having a lot of success in this industry right now. We're bigger than them. We have more deployable cash.
We have things like Miele that they could never do. But we're not as big as the big, so we're more agile. Our job will be to be, how do we beat them to the punch in different things that are going on in sport and different things that are going on in culture and different things that are going on in design? It's going to inflect. Giving you a timeline is irresponsible at this time, but watch this space. Sick. Go ahead, Chris. Yep.
Hi, it's Bob Drbul from Guggenheim. I guess on the footwear, I think you finished by saying it real heavy in footwear. When you look at where you are with ASPs in footwear today, a lot of what you've put in front of us is more premiumized, higher price points. Can you just talk about the ability and sort of timeline to moving the ASP line higher over the next few years? Thanks.
So we are today on an average ASP under $100 in footwear. However, the market grew the ASP across all the brands over $100. What was $100 average price points two, three years ago, now it's $140. And now we're catching up to that position, and we're bringing that innovation and design to play in that field. So we said for Winter 2025 is a pivotal season on bringing product to life. I think it's the work we're doing with Jason, with Kara and Kevin to bring that to our wholesale partners and to our DTC. So it will take some time, but we believe it will come faster than we think. Okay.
Laurent Vasilescu from BNP Paribas, Kevin and team, thank you very much for the presentation today. I've got a two-part question. First, following up on Bob's question about footwear, we saw a lot of great product today. Love to get high level. I know it's early, but feedback you're getting from some key accounts. And then second part is around the Americas presentation, I think in the slide, around distribution. It said 92% of revenues is driven by 50% of those accounts. Is there an opportunity to maybe pare that down? Where do you want that target to go? And I think you mentioned there might be some opportunities around new distribution. Love to get some color there on that front. Thank you.
Let's do Yassine first and then Kara maybe.
Yes. I mean, the response that we had from our wholesale partner has been very positive. We started actually our journey. You've seen the travel map that we had with Kevin. That's all the accounts that we've met from June to today, and we've presented them our intention on elevating a product, showing them design. We engaged them very early on in our process and our venture to the category, and we're currently in selling for Fall into 2025. And the response has been very, very positive. We don't have numbers so far. It's a bit early, but the response is positive, and we're engaging conversation that we never had before. We're talking about price points. Today, accounts are considering at $140 and $170 price point footwear where we've never been in that position before, so we're moving.
Yeah, I'll just build on what Yassine had to say. I mean, I think the reaction from our accounts has been tremendous, not just with the products, but around the positioning, the shifts of balance that we're trying to drive to our own business that will help theirs. But they're really excited by not only the products, but how we're thinking about elevating price points because to Yassine's point, that is where the market has shifted. And so they want us to be playing in the areas where the marketplace currently exists today. Relative to distribution, I mean, I think, look, we're predominantly in the sports performance channel, right? That's where the majority of our distribution lies. And without giving a declaration on what that ratio should look like, we just know that we want it to be more balanced because we want to be present where this consumer lives.
We haven't quite gotten to that point yet, but I think, as you see from the positioning, the storytelling, the products, our intention is to be able to have a more balanced distribution portfolio.
Thanks. Hi, Simeon Siegel, BMO. This was great, guys. Across the board, thank you. Following up on the distribution, Kara if I can, Eric's talking about you guys have a lot of money. You guys clearly sound like you're ready to kind of show the world the brand. As you think about brand house versus factory, can you just talk a little bit about that? And should there be a greater prevalence of full price, strong brand representation? So as you're thinking about that. And then if I could just quick follow up, we talked a lot about being able to take price because of product. We didn't really talk that much about promotions, but as you're premiumizing the brand, which is such a great word, how do you see the opportunity just to continue to pull back and to be selling more full price in general? Thanks, guys.
All right, here we go. So what was the first part? Stores. Thank you. Yeah. So I mean, look, we're overweighted from Factory House to Brand House. We're really pleased, though, with the new Sports House concept that we just launched at our headquarters. And our first part of the sequencing of this reset is going to be to scale that across our current fleet. Over the out years, over the coming years, of course, our intention is to be present with Brand Houses, again, in major cities where we believe we can continue to engage with the consumer.
So you'll begin to see us think about what that looks like. But starting point will be to work with the fleet that we have, optimizing those doors, elevating those experiences, and shifting that quality of revenue. The second part of your question around premiumizing the brand, I believe, if we're honest with ourselves, we started this year within one channel, right, which was really removing our promotional revenue out of our e-commerce business. And so we have work to do across the rest of our fleet to ensure that we're shifting that quality of revenue. But we're really pleased with the progress that we've made and that we've seen. And again, you guys have heard some of those results through our first two earnings calls, but we'll continue to drive that forward.
Again, the consumer is engaging and interacting in a more premium way, which tells us that connecting the story to the product with the right experience can help drive the premiumization that we're looking to see.
Hi, Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Thank you for taking my question. Thank you for today. So a lot of really good new product. And you spoke, Kara, about marketplace management. Can we talk about, on some of the new ideas, how you're thinking about bringing them to market, the speed, or how intentional it's all going to be so we don't go back to 2016 again? Because, I mean, again, you have good stuff. I just want to understand how this marketplace management is going to work as you roll out that product, which I think will help answer some of the other questions that were asked as well.
Great question. It does come down to discipline, and I don't mean to oversimplify, but historically, in this market, we've been running channels by silos, which doesn't contemplate then what you sell where or what activities you're doing in each of those channels and how it might impact the consumer experience in another channel. And so thinking about an integrated marketplace means thinking holistically about any place a customer can interact with our brand. That's from an e-commerce website to a factory house to a wholesale partner. And so I think key to what the new product that Yassine is bringing does come down to discipline segmentation and more sophisticated segmentation. If we're transparent with ourselves, it's not a skill set that we've been highly great at over the years.
And so driving that differentiation to make sure that we're clear on the role each channel, each account is going to play for us, ensuring that we remain disciplined in where we put each of these products, what type of quantities we put of these products in the market to be driving more of a pull model than a push model.
Hold on a second, Sam. We got to get you on web. Just with some of the new products, regardless of what it is, if it's the Velociti Pro or whatever, can you talk on a specific item about what you're seeing, who that is, and how specifically it's going to roll out? Because that context, seeing a lot of product but not having an idea of how it's going to roll, I've seen lots of great product out there in the past from lots of companies, and they've overdistributed it and messed it up. So some idea would be very helpful. Thank you.
So we're taking Kara off the hotspot right now, so. All right, for me? All right. So I just want to build off of what my partner here was saying. It's like, we're not where we want to be. Let's be really honest about that. Today was about showing you where we want to be and where we're going, and so I think if you take a product like let's take the Velociti Elite, right? That's a dual foam, carbon plate, super foam product that's as good as anything I've ever had on my feet.
Not a runner, but I do run. It's as good as anything I've ever worn. We're going to put that in the right channels, and that's going to start at running specialty, and it's going to move down to Dick's Sporting Goods and not down, but at the same time, it migrates through as you go like that. When we talk about some of the things that Yassine presented on Halo Runner or Halo Trainer, it's like I'm a big believer, Sam, in the roles of categories, the roles of accounts, and how the consumer interacts with us at those different milestones, right? So if we're going to tell a product times story times distribution, it all needs to line up.
So if the Velociti Elite is the premium expression of our running range, then it needs to be told in a story that's about that experience and best runner, fourth best American team ever we saw today in the nation. And then where's the distribution? I think we can write it ourselves, and you can do that. How does that then come into the stuff that you presented today with the takedown strategy at the different accounts? We're being very clear that we do not want to give up the business we have today. We want to build on top of that business today. And that's what I heard from the presentation. So does that get more specific for you? He's nodding his head. Or was that an Indian? What was that? Sam caught me at the break. Let me see if I can sum this up, Sam.
You want to know Yassine came here. It was interesting because he'd been out of the industry for four or five years. He comes, and he's like, "This industry, we're only like one shoe away." So that's the beauty of the lottery ticket. But hopefully, what we've shown you today is that hope's not a strategy. We're not walking with our fingers crossed and saying, "Don't worry, the Echo is going to be the next big thing." We're going to place bets. We're going to lay things out there, and we're going to do it in a prudent way and make sure we think about it with a thoughtful A segmentation up front, but then the way we cascade that of moving through that product, of leveraging the outlet stores that we do have in the U.S., which is a little outsized, 2,000 stores globally.
Is it, Dave, keep me honest, 450-500 outlets globally? So it's about 25% of our global mix. It's heavier here in the States. But we should be using those stores where we're not in a 95% MFO or made for outlet, but we're in a 50% or 60% so we can move through product. We can take the right chances because something's going to pop here. There's just too much incredible product. What Yassine's been building, what Kyle's been developing, what Yassine sees, what we have from the team, I think it's it. So Sam, hopefully, that gave you a little more closure.
All right. Thank you.
Hi, Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. Thanks for the presentation. Very helpful. So I have a two-part question, two parts that may be unrelated. The first is a follow-up to the question that came over there, just on the products we saw.
It sounds like you're having very good conversations with your wholesale partners and their receptivity to these products. But the question I have is, are you, as an organization, doing any more pre-testing with consumers to see if these products are potentially likely resonating with your core consumer? And I'll waive my follow-up because I saw Kevin start to shake his head there. So go ahead.
Yeah. I mean, the product that we're creating, we are working on a life cycle of 18 months. So we started working on those projects already early February, which is a shorter timeline than we usually actually work. But we're working with our athletes. We're working with ambassadors to make sure that the product works, there's an appetite for it, and the design and the form and the function actually work for them. So that's a sort of testing.
And then we go through. We use our DTC platform as well as our stores to actually pre-release some of them. And that's going to be a testing run for them. That's how we will be using our DTC going forward, maybe launch slightly earlier with them, see the response, and scale from there.
That's helpful. And the second question I have is more of a financial question, but we talk a lot about the product and the improved marketing. But I guess from an operational standpoint, is the infrastructure in place or as you see this, what you're talking about today, taking shape, is there more investment that's going to need to happen here?
Yeah, great question. And I think that what we've been trying to kind of demonstrate is the power of how the product and marketing are coming together, but we've also been demonstrating how we've done a lot of releveling and rebasing of our cost structure. And we talked about today about we have enough marketing dollars. We just need to be able to spend them better. So in the short term, we should be able to gain that momentum and do that without a lot of extra investment. We will be investing, but we're going to find areas where we can take down to be able to supplement that. So that's where we're driving in the short term, and we'll get more into the numbers as we think midterm, long term. Chris, you got anything back there?
Yeah, I got it. Hey, guys. Nice work today. Rick Patel from Raymond James. I'd love to better understand whether the go-to-market strategy is going to be consistent by geography. I'm just thinking about Asia, where the ground seems to be moving beneath everyone right now. So does the same playbook apply to every market? And then secondly, from a marketing perspective, it sounds like next year is being lined up as a big marketing investment year. How do we think about how that is distorted across the Americas, Europe, Asia?
Okay. So sorry, just lining up with who's going to answer that. We're at different places in the geographies, for sure. I mean, I think Kara can speak more eloquently than I, but I mean, I think Europe, which she started there and Kevin's picked up, is a turnaround story.
And I think, as I mentioned in my bit and Kevin and everyone spoke through theirs, was it's got the most energy right now, especially in key cities. And the good thing is we have our platform of UA Next. We have different pieces in place. I think right now we don't have a unified brand positioning. Then it's a loose one that we do different creative work in different markets at different times. I think what we're trying to do with the marketing campaign is unify that under one brand campaign globally that speaks the same language. So what you heard from me about being that disruption to the system, all the markets are bought in on that. We're not just throwing things over the walls. They've all been involved in the creation. They've all been read in on that, and they're excited about how they can apply that.
It might be global football, soccer for this idiot audience in Europe, where it's American football here, and it may be a different sport in Asia. I think to answer your question on Asia, the ground is moving a lot. But I would remind you that we probably have the least exposure there of any of the big brands that we compete with, and we have the ability to be more agile than them, which kind of goes back to the expression we've been sharing today.
I'd like to just build on that with it's easy to walk in and say, "I just got here. What happened before?" And I've been eight months. Coming in in eight months, I started, I came, and I said, "I need to get my partner grounded." Kara was a month in the job when we started together.
And so we've been traveling a lot, going and seeing Kevin Ross in Europe, where we've got really solid momentum there with really great partners. And there's a few of them that we can see and have a conversation with. So we really prioritized that the last eight or nine months. And it's one of the things of Eric joining here was we haven't left Jason on an island, but we need to spend more time there as an organization because Asia is an incredibly powerful thing. The opportunity that we have of doing great business to complement, as Jason said earlier, the 1,400 of our 2,000 stores that are across the entire region. So we need to get that right.
As we're working here with the new Sports House flagship retail of identifying how do we build that model for a 4,500 sq ft store that can be beautiful, we're fast at work at that. So there are multiple irons in the fire that we have right now to try to generate this. But the long and short of it is we'll be over there, and Eric and I will be over there in January for a bit of an extended period of time. But Asia will be in our crosshairs as something to focus on for this brand because the consumer very much enjoys and likes the Under Armour brand, which is we have to unlock that for them.
Matt Boss, J.P. Morgan. So Kevin, could you elaborate on the use of marketing to shrink the battlefield? I liked that as a thematic. Just using experiences and how this may be different than campaigns in the past. And then for Eric, with the change to the category-led strategy, when do you see the sweet spot, just given the structural changes and product lead times?
Thanks, Matt. I think it happens across as I said. I think it happens every day. We're trying to break through, to cut through the noise. And when I think about this company, it's probably maybe a surprise or shock to everyone. When I say the words, "We spent $500 million in marketing," I think most people would say it's easy. There's no one here who's going to be offended by this statement, but it sure doesn't feel that way. I don't feel like we've cut through because I feel like we got to that point where we're just kind of doing a job.
It was like we were plugging this into this channel, and here's what happens with that account versus you look back and say, "We should take a fresh approach in this." And that is, of the three things I asked Eric to do, probably the most important at the end of the day, but business model and operating model doesn't matter a lot too. But let's go find some scale in dollars. And this is not to be clear. This is not a statement of how does our $500 million become $600 million, but how do we create and generate real scale? And so I think when we get lucky with signing of Steph en Curry to begin with when we did, and the harder we work, the luckier we get.
But I feel like we have that in flight in each and every day, and I appreciate you saying that because I do think that's one of the best examples and why it's incredibly acute. We're looking to create that in sort of every unlock that we have across the brand.
I would just reiterate the shrinking the battlefield is it's about quality, not quantity. It's about really focus. I think Kevin's example of Army versus Navy is a great one. It's like that day and that given for those three hours, we are eye- to- eye. And I think it's putting us positions to be eye- to-e ye with our competitors in places that we choose and we pick. And whether you like 300 or not, it's a famous story that they picked a location where they'd stand a fighting chance.
I think we have to recognize we're not backing down from anybody. We're meeting people eye- to- eye. That could be shrinking the battlefield on innovations. It could be shrinking the battlefield on activations. It could be shrinking the battlefield on marketing. But it's like finding that. One of the things we're really clear about is we know where we're strong. We know where we're not. We're going to build little fires where we're strong. Here in the States, we know where to focus. I-95 corridor is our home. We're going to protect our home, protect this house, if you will, first. How do we do that? We roll that out. We double down there. That's what I mean by shrinking the battlefield. Let's make sure we go into battles with always the chance to come out winning.
I'm not one to put ourselves at risk. When it comes to the operating model, we're going. I mean, today's basically day one. So coming out of the new year, we expect to have that, and I just want to let everybody know and the teammates back home, it's an evolution of what Yassine's already done nine months ago. Yassine already took it from a product-led organization to a category-led organization. Now we're piloting more responsibilities. We're putting in sports marketing. We're putting in brand marketing. We're putting in distribution planning. And we're putting heads on that to hold accountability. Because as I said in my speech, we don't have that accountability to win those consumers. That's needed, and by the way, it's proven in this industry. I did it in my former place. We put $8 billion on the books in six years.
The guys in Beaverton did it a long time ago. It's called category offense. They went away from that recently. What the hell happened to it? They're going back to it with Elliott coming in. So there's a consistency here that we just need to run a better play, if you will, and stop self-inflicting some harm on that. And that's going to happen really fast because in my experience, the three components of a turnaround are operating model, which creates great product and stories, our strategic business plan, where are we going, and what does winning look like, and culture. And this gets all mixed together to create a winning recipe. So.
Hi, Christina Fernandez from Telsey Advisory Group. I wanted to ask, how do you plan to use your athletes as better influencers or stronger influences for the brand to drive desire for your products? And also, a question perhaps for Yassine or Eric. You talked about collaborations. You talked about using influencers, which a lot of the other brands use for footwear. So how do you see those playing a role at Under Armour in the future?
Okay. Thank you. I was just getting a little brief from my boss. So I think it's a really interesting question. It's a really interesting time. Sports is systemically changing. Amateur sports has gotten completely blown up. And I won't spend too much time going through that, but every college now has a salary cap of $22 million to spend on NIL. You've got these athletes going on that are now professional all the way down into college and high schools. And so it's not about Stephen Curry or Kelsey Plum and those assets only.
It's about the Army of people that are underneath that through this thing called name, image, likeness, or NIL. It's like, what are the abilities for us to deploy capital to sign more individuals that may not be on our schools going forward, that may be influencers in their own right, that maybe we grow into high school, and the people we've lost that came to our program. Patrick Mahomes was an All-American on UA Next All-American. Help me out here. Who are we talking about? Caleb Williams was on the squad. Give me the kid from Minnesota. Come on. Anthony Edwards. I mean, all these great athletes that are now dominating the industry, they came to our grassroots program. We just let them go. That ain't going to happen anymore.
It's like having those people with us is going to be really important because we're out there identifying and scouting. Furthermore, their social cachet is growing like crazy when you're a good athlete, especially when you have charisma that you can show. There's this place in Atlanta called Overtime Elite. I'm not sure you guys are aware of it. It's a startup that's been doing really well. It's a different route to going professional than the traditional college go through the NCAA and go up. Guess what? Yesterday, we announced the hiring of their head of brand coming over to join us as our Senior Vice President of Brand Marketing for Americas and Global. His name's Tyler Rutstein. Rutstein? Rutstein, I think. We debate how we pronounce that. Tyler's going to. I'm going to meet with him later today.
But the idea is he's a guy that built a brand as a startup. He worked with me at Adidas. He's a guy that started this brand with Overtime Elite and created these superstar celebrities that came from sport but took that off the court. So really excited about how we can, again, be more agile than the bigs in this next frontier because we don't have capital tied up in teams, leagues, and conferences like some others. All right.
Yeah. I just want to follow up on the collaboration part of your question. So collaboration is going to be an important leverage for us when it comes to storytelling. I mean, I've built the collaboration platform at Puma, and we started working with up-and-coming brands to artists such as Rihanna or other. And there's been pivotal for us on talking to consumer from a cultural lens.
So that's not something we're going to escape. We're going to embrace. We're going to do it a different way because what I've seen as well from many brands is using collaboration is also diluting their brand. And we want to speak for Under Armour first, and our partners will help us expand the message of who we are as an innovating brand and underdog. And also, we're going to use partners, and we're going to work with partners to expand our demographic, our regional demographic as well in Asia. We're going to partner with Asian brands that are really specific to China specifically. So collaboration will be part of our activation, and we will embrace it.
All right. We've got time for two more, so we'll go one here.
Hi. Tom Nikic with Needham & Company. I wanted to ask about sportswear as a category. For essentially as long as I've followed the company, it's been an opportunity for you guys. Can you talk about how your approach this time around will be different from your previous attempts at the category?
Sportswear. I think sportswear is a natural evolution for the brand and been a natural evolution for all the brands. Sportswear for us will be rooted in performance, and we're rooted in technology. I think that's going to be one of our points of difference is we're not just going to do basic capsules with our logos. Every single sportswear product will have a technical feature that will basically support the brand positioning going forward. So it's starting in Fall, Winter 2025. We had quite a good reaction in the past from previous seasons. We had footwear that did very well.
But there's an appetite for the sportswear channel to introduce a new brand, to have a new language, to have a new point of view, and have new dynamic into the sportswear world. So I think we have a strong place and strong role to play in that field.
I would just add on, that's exactly the right strategy because I learned a long time ago, nothing goes out of fashion as fast as fashion. So if you just chase fashion, you're just going to be on this hamster wheel forever and ever, and you'll be chasing it. If we ground ourselves in who we are and performance, you can then transition that across.
And just as a proof point, the momentum we're seeing in the places we are right now, whether it be in I-95 or whether it be in Paris or London, is because kids are going back to the early aughts. The early aughts are on trend right now. The early 2000s, sorry. And those are kids wearing Under Armour again. They're wearing compression, and it's organic, right? So now we're just sprinkling some fuel on that and letting those little fires start organically. But it's something that's real, and it's happening now, and we're excited about how we can make that expand and go bigger.
All right. And while we take our last question.
All right. Thanks. This is John Kernan from TD Cowen. Hopefully, we can come down to Baltimore and see the shiny new HQ soon. As you think about the 16- to 24-year-old consumer you're focusing on now, what about the 30 and over male consumer that largely skewed towards the brand before? How do you talk to that consumer and not lose that consumer? Because I imagine he's pretty valuable to you.
It's an exclusive. We're not exclusive. I mean, we're an inclusive brand. So we have to have a cohort that we're focused on to get that heart, and we'll build our work there. But we're not going to piss anybody off in doing that. I mean, I'm 34-plus male who likes to train. I still see myself as an 18-year-old. And I hope that came across today.
I think it's about appealing to that kid in all of us that still wants to be that team sports person but gets up at 4:30 A.M. this morning, goes to Barry's Bootcamp, and regrets it for the rest of the day, which was me today, Chad Smith. Yeah. That consumer is there for us, I believe. We're not going to take them for granted. We're going to make sure that we're speaking to them, but we're going to do it through the lens of focusing and narrowing in on that very key and core demographic. As the dad of a 21-year-old son and a soon-to-be 18-year-old daughter who's going off to college, they don't wear Under Armour because dad works there. We're informing ourselves every day about where we want to go and what we need to do. It's a focus group of one or two.
But the ability for us, I think, to uncrack that, I think a lot of 34-year-olds are going to be into what they like wearing as well in the right appropriate way.
All right. Thank you all very much. That concludes the 2024 Investor Day from Under Armour. Appreciate you being here and look forward to continued conversations. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, very much for coming. Appreciate it.