Marketing Lessons from the Failure of the Under Armour and Stephen Curry Partnership

Abstract

 

The sneaker industry relies greatly on collaborative and momentum-driven branding strategies, particularly through athlete partnerships. These deals are crucial in driving a company’s gross sales of products, along with increasing cultural relevance and long-term brand value. A major partnership between October 2023 and November of 2025 was between Under Armour and NBA Superstar Stephen Curry. This deal seemed to have had immense potential for the company to grow in size and be able to compete with industry leaders in the footwear market. Despite the generational talent of Curry, his brand with Under Armour never reached its desired potential nor achieved a sustainable commercial and cultural presence as they had once hoped. 

This paper analyzes the underlying causes of this immense marketing failure by Under Armour in depth through a comprehensive case study of the overall company branding, marketing, and cultural outreach execution. Through financial performance data, marketing analyses, and comparisons with other high-profile competitors and athlete partnerships, this analysis aims to identify ways to improve on the shortcomings of Under Armour’s current marketing approach. 

Aspects like ultra-conservative sneaker designs, limited development of the product narrative, and a failure to connect with the desires of the target customer base are immense contributors to the collapse of the Curry and Under Armour partnership. To compare and contrast these failures, the analysis evaluates successful branding models by large competitors such as Nike and Adidas to highlight the importance of the combination of various marketing strategies working together. Fundamentally, modern-day customers desire authenticity, cultural relevance, and athlete-driven brands over generic performance-based advertising. Through this analysis, the findings contribute to a broader understanding of how sneaker brands can learn from Under Armour’s mistakes to avoid similar fates in the growing era of the sneaker marketplace.