Curry Brand, a collaboration between Under Armour and NBA star Steph Curry, is officially launching tomorrow after months of rumors. The new brand will invest a percentage of annual revenue in “under-resourced” communities. 

By 2025, Curry Brand aims to:

• Invest in basketball court renovations to create at least 20 safe places to play.
• Support 125 school and community programs that impact young athletes.
• Deliver opportunities to recruit and develop more than 15,000 coaches.

The line will launch with apparel and shoes for several sports, including basketball and golf. Curry Brand is expected to further expand into categories including running and women’s.

UA’s Hail Mary: Two years ago, the company reportedly promised Curry his own sub-brand when he was concerned about sales of his Curry 3 shoes as well as former UA CEO and founder Kevin Plank’s endorsement of Donald Trump.

For Under Armour, the line is widely seen as an attempt to compete with Nike’s Jordan Brand, which does over $3 billion in annual sales — UA’s total revenue for the year ending Sept. 30 was $4.51 billion. The company signed Curry in 2013, stealing him away from Nike; he also took an equity stake in the latest deal extension.

UA has been losing steam:  

• UA has been No. 1 on a list of brands “no longer worn” by male teens for a year, according to a Piper Sandler survey, while Nike has maintained its No. 1 spot as the favorite apparel brand among teens for a decade.
• Its image has also struggled as consumers flock to athleisure brands like Lululemon, while UA is becoming associated with high-performance activities. 
• In its latest reported quarter, UA sales were about flat from a year earlier. In North America, revenue fell 5%, but international sales increased 18%.

MLB is creating a new minor league level for its top eligible draftees. The MLB Draft League will consist of a five-team, 68-game regular season schedule — including an All-Star break — coinciding with the early-July draft. 

Major League Shakeup

• The teams will play in markets that lost minor league teams as MLB shrank its number of affiliates from 160 to 120 this offseason, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey. 
• MLB announced in September that it would be changing the Appalachian League, formerly a rookie-level affiliated league, into a college wood-bat summer league.
• Formerly affiliated leagues the American Association, Frontier League, Atlantic League and Pioneer League were also designated MLB “Partner Leagues” over the offseason.

MLB has looked to push through a massive restructuring of Minor League Baseball this year, overhauling its future structure and the governance of the minors. An agreement between the two sides expired in September, and MLB now operates the minors from its New York headquarters.

The overhaul is also changing the business relationship: MLB and MiLB teams will move from a franchise model to a licensing model. MLB will take over merchandising, broadcast and sponsorship rights, splitting net revenues 50-50 with the minor league clubs.

Minor league teams can also have a financial impact on their communities:

• In 2019, MiLB and its clubs donated about $50 million nationwide, including restoring 15 youth baseball fields.
• MiLB and its teams nearly doubled volunteer efforts from 2018, giving more than 26,000 hours in service to their communities.

Universal Studios Japan’s new life-size video game zone, Super Nintendo World, is set to open on Feb. 4, 2021, slightly ahead of the company’s latest projections. 

Life Imitates Art

• Visitors in the zone will wear a “power up band” that enables them to collect coins and battle bosses while exploring a physical environment.
• Progress will be tracked via a smartphone app.
• One of the flagship attractions is a Mario Kart-themed roller coaster that makes use of AR and projection mapping technology. 

Nintendo first announced plans for the park in 2015 as part of a broader goal to allow use of its IP beyond its own consoles and devices. Since then, the company has launched a handful of smartphone games, including a free-to-play version of the Mario Kart franchise, but still makes its biggest titles exclusive to its own hardware.

Super Nintendo World is also set to appear in the future at Universal’s parks in Hollywood, Orlando and Singapore. 

A bellwether for the industry?  Universal Studios Japan’s opening will likely be monitored as a potential model for the entire theme park industry, which has taken a major hit in recent months. 

• The Japanese theme park is currently operating at 50% capacity, despite COVID-19 cases rising in Osaka. 
• The Walt Disney Co., for example, saw revenues from its parks, experiences and products business line drop 61% year over year, and recently laid off 32,000 theme park employees.