Sloane Stephens Wins | Under Armour Beats Nike and I Beat a Dead Horse

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Stephens, 24 and ranked 83rd, won her first Grand Slam championship with a 6-3, 6-0 victory against Keys, her American contemporary. Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

Source: Sloane Stephens Beats Madison Keys to Claim U.S. Open Title

After every sporting event, however niche it may seem, I find myself writing the same post about the speed of Under Armour’s marketing team. Sloane Stephens is the epitome of “#IWILL, #WEWILL” which is UA’s latest slogan. #UNLIKEANY is the amazing campaign the company created which should have featured Sloane considering her return from injury to capture the US Open is the type of story that brands can build a foundation on especially at a time when every brand is trying to catch Lululemon and reach women.

Yet, here I am again, kicking a dead horse and saying that Under Armour hasn’t done a takeover of their website to feature Sloane. All they’ve done was a congratulations post with their hashtag on their social media. I’ve said over and over that for Under Armour to be successful they need to begin thinking small and capturing all of the niche opportunities that exist for the brand. Under Armour has champions in every segment of sport, but you wouldn’t know that if you visited the site. The narrative isn’t being created and quite frankly I think it’s the last time I write about it, but I will share some of the posts below so you can see my frustration with a company that is not performing very well and show how they are continuing to miss opportunities to undercut a damaged Nike machine.

The narrative around Sloan is dope. She beat a Nike athlete. It wasn’t epic or pretty. It was gritty and ugly, but she won less than a year after a major surgery. Talk about a great narrative! Then again, don’t talk about it or build narratives and sports packages, or videos around it… that seems to be the Under Armour way.