Tight Skivvies

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Kevin Plank didn't set out to create a cult around athletic underwear. He just wanted a comfortable T shirt to wear under his football pads, though he admits he was a bit obsessive about it. The result is a line of sweat-shedding sports clothing that more than doubled its annual sales in 2002, to $55 million. It's called Under Armour, and athletes from pro football linebackers to kids who play in rec hockey leagues regard the skintight garments as cool — in every sense of the word.

Plank got the idea for Under Armour after eight of his football teammates at the University of Maryland landed in the hospital with heat exhaustion over a weekend of practice sessions in August 1995. Plank, a senior running back and business major, managed to avoid collapse but was bothered by his soggy cotton undershirt. The thing bunched and chafed under his pads, and when soaked with sweat, it added to the load on his back. "Being short and slow," he says, "I was looking for every ounce I could spare."

He searched sporting-goods stores, catalogs and the Internet for a synthetic shirt that would shed sweat as fast as the Lycra compression shorts he wore under his football pants. High-end specialists who sold gear for mountaineering and skiing offered pricey garments made with an inner layer of fabric that wicked perspiration away from the skin to an outer layer where it would evaporate. These clothes helped prevent hypothermia in extreme cold. But nobody made what Plank wanted: an affordable, featherweight, moisture-wicking T shirt — one that would fit skintight so it would lie flat under straps and pads.

As graduation neared, Plank, then 23, decided to explore the product niche he had identified. In March 1996, he bought some stretchy lingerie material at a fabric store and had a tailor make up samples of athletic undershirts. He handed them out to fellow members of the Maryland football squad, who found them comfortable and edgy looking — and clamored for more. That told Plank he was onto something. His older brother Bill, an architect, contributed the macho name Under Armour, and an artist friend designed a sleekly minimalist logo. Working out of the basement of a house in Georgetown he'd inherited from his grandmother, Plank engaged a New York City garmentmaker to produce 500 T shirts that he called Heat Gear. He tossed them into the trunk of his car and drove to colleges in the East and the South. He made his first sale, for 200 shirts at $12 apiece, to the football team at Georgia Tech.

The rest is marketing history. After booking sales of $17,000 in 1996, Under Armour boosted that number to $55 million in 2002. And on the basis of orders in hand from pro and amateur teams and select retail chains, Plank expects sales to roughly double in 2003. Special-forces troops buy the stuff, as do middle-school kids who wear it to class. Marty Hanaka, CEO of the Sports Authority, the nation's largest sporting-goods retailer, says demand for Under Armour has risen "exponentially" in most of its 204 stores. "There's a surge in participation in active sports by Generation Y and the kids of baby boomers," says Hanaka. "Under Armour's problem is going to be producing enough."

But that's not its only challenge. Like most successful upstarts, Under Armour faces growing competition from big established brands. Nike has launched a line of sweat-wicking clothing called Dri-FIT One. And Reebok is selling a similar line, called NFL Equipment, as part of a 10-year, $250 million licensing deal with the National Football League. Meanwhile, Under Armour's image of insider cool will be strained as it tries to expand its market beyond committed sports enthusiasts. "It's been able to captivate the hard-core male athlete," says Marshal Cohen, co-president of market-research firm NPDFashionworld. "If there's a brand those athletes feel really helps them, boy, will they be loyal to that brand. But the broader you grow your business, the less of a fanatic the customer is. The casual user shifts from brand to brand."

Headquartered in renovated offices on the rundown waterfront of Baltimore, Md., Under Armour is privately held by Plank, 30, his mother, five brothers and two partners. Under Armour manufactures about half its gear in Honduras, Mexico and other countries in the Caribbean basin. Wages are higher in Baltimore, but the company makes about half its goods there and in other U.S. cities to ensure rapid turnaround for key products. Under Armour ships 175,000 items a week, mostly shirts selling for $25 to $50 but also shorts, socks and headgear. All are made of various blends of polyester and Lycra. Most of the clothing is formfitting, but a new line called Loose Gear was added a few years ago for customers who aren't gym sculpted. (Nike's Dri-Fit line is a major competitor in this market segment.) New products in 2003 will include golf shirts, boxer shorts, briefs and women's team wear.

Under Armour's buyers include 101 major college-football teams, players from 28 NFL teams, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, the U.S. ski team, college and pro lacrosse teams and countless youth teams. Under Armour has no military contracts, but a Navy SEAL reports that he and his comrades "pool our money and buy it out of our own pockets."