Once upon a time, Under Armour asked — actually, more like demanded — that we “protect this house.” In its marketing campaign launched this week, the Baltimore-based performance athletic gear manufacturer is saying, “I will.”

Under Armour will debut an “I will” commercial on Saturday during TNT’s NBA All-Star Weekend coverage. The spot features Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, Charlotte Hornets guard Kemba Walker, top 20 women’s tennis player Sloane Stephens and boxing champion Canelo Alvarez.

Here’s the commercial:

The company is highlighting its Armour39, a digital performance monitoring system that launches next month.

“This is a training product,” Mark Oleson, director of innovation and research for Under Armour, told CNET. “It sets itself apart by measuring athletic performance.”

Armour39 can be linked to Android devices, and it will retail at $149.99.

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For the 12^th year in a row, Corrigan Sports Enterprises is doing more for its signature event, the Under Armour Baltimore Running Festival.

More runners, more sponsors, more volunteers, more charitable donations, more TV airtime.

About 27,000 runners from the Baltimore area and beyond will flock to downtown streets Saturday morning. The event has become a Charm City staple thanks to the keen business minds of Lee Corrigan and his close-knit team of 13 people.

The festival drew about 6,500 participants in 2001, a number that increased 10-to-20 percent each year. Its estimated economic impact has soared from less than $10 million to about $30.5 million last year, according to a study by Towson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute.

The festival’s success is even more impressive considering it was the brainchild of a guy whose company was… sort of an accident.

He was in the right place, at the right time, with the right skill set.

Back in the 1980s, Corrigan was working for the athletic department at the University of Maryland, College Park when one of the scoreboard screens “literally exploded.” But the department was still reeling from the media storm surrounding basketball player Len Bias’ death, and couldn’t exactly afford new screens, he said.

So officials worked out a deal with an equipment company that agreed to provide them. Corrigan was asked to find sponsors for the screens. In return, Corrigan said, he’d get 15 percent of ad sales.

By 1991, he’d accumulated enough money on the side that he needed to account for the extra income. Before he knew it, his accountant was inquiring what he’d like to call his new company.

Poof – Corrigan Sports Enterprises was born.

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By now everyone has given their opinion about the football uniforms the University of Maryland unveiled Monday night during their season-opening win against Miami.

Paul Lukas, an authority on uniforms, wrote on ESPN.com the Terps were in “court jester” mode and looked like “living chess pieces.” An athletic department spokesman told the New York Daily News the design is a “branding thing,” while an Under Armour spokesman said they were a way to “define Maryland pride and to differentiate.”

“Maryland Pride,” perhaps not-so-coincidentally, is also the title of a one-minute video the Terps were reportedly shown before receiving the uniforms last night. I was ready to put on cleats as a narrator described the Compfit Pride Jersey, “tight where it needs to be, no drag, no grab, more flex.”

You can see the ad below, which Under Amour also posted on YouTube last night. (Lukas and others reported receiving a press release about the uniforms right around kickoff time.)

Love them or hate them, the uniforms “accomplished exactly what they want to do,” Stewart Mandel, a college football writer for SportsIllustrated.com, told the Daily News.

“For three hours last night, everyone was talking about Maryland football,” he said. “When’s the last time anyone talked about Maryland football?”

All of this means one thing to this College Park alum: I can’t wait to see which of the 32 uniform combinations the Terps break out for their next game, Sept. 17 against West Virginia.

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To best debut its new footwear line, Under Armour is launching an advertising campaign with the help of Tom Brady, Cam Newton and Georges St-Pierre.

The company is calling this campaign its largest in footwear so far. TV watchers will be able to see 60-second and 30-second commercials featuring the star athletes on MTV, BET and ESPN, and ads will be on Facebook, Yahoo! Sports and STACK Magazine.

Baltimore-based Under Armour hired twofifteenmccann, a San Francisco-based creative agency, and is using “Friday Night Lights” director Peter Berg for the commercials. Berg’s production company, Pony Show Entertainment, executed the shoot.

The big shoe to watch out for is the UA Charge RC, which uses UA’s HeatGear material as well as the Micro G foam for a light and durable shoe.

Under Armour lovers will start seeing the shoe this fall in City Sports and Dick’s Sporting Goods stores, and it will be available to retailers across the U.S. in December.

Maybe Bill Murray could use some these shoes when taking “baby steps.”

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Say you had to tweet your cover letter and file your resume through a Facebook page. Does the idea make you panicky?

Under Armour is looking for two intern candidates to join its “Ultimate Intern Team.” The program is open to undergrad and graduate college students who want to learn more about sports and marketing.

But they have to make their pitch in 140 characters and use Under Armour’s Facebook fan page to submit their resume through May 12. The chosen interns will be working with the digital marketing team at the company, focusing on social media engagement.

The internship sounds like a pretty sweet gig. For five weeks, the interns will work with some of UA’s athlete sponsors, see the technology behind the brand’s innovation and spend some time getting to know CEO Kevin Plank to discuss leadership and entrepreneurship. The students will also work on Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and blog entries on their experiences with the company. Reminds me a bit of when Charlie Bucket gets to take the glass elevator trip with Willy Wonka. If only.

The selected interns will receive a $5,000 scholarship paid directly to his or her school. The final 100 candidates will be announced on May 16, then the top 10 will conduct a Skype interview on May 23 with UA officials. Airfare, travel and housing will all be covered as part of the internship, which lasts June 13 to July 15.

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From horse racing to the NFL’s Tom Brady to the Baltimore Orioles, sports dominated the most popular stories generated by The Daily Record’s business reporters last week. And the latest twist in the city’s quest for a new sports arena cracked the top five after only day on our website.

1. Penn National backs plan to close Laurel, cut racing in Maryland

“From a business perspective, again, these are losing operations that will continue to be in decline without some alternative revenue stream or these types of steep cuts,” said D. Eric Schippers, a Penn National spokesman. The company’s position made public rifts that have developed in the corporate family that runs thoroughbred racing in Maryland.

2. Under Armour signs Tom Brady

For its first NFL quarterback endorser Under Armour aimed high, and the Baltimore-based company didn’t miss, signing three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady of the New England Patriots to help it wrest market share from rivals like Nike Inc.

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There’s been a lot of chatter over Under Armour’s logo that was painted on the north side of Federal Hill (facing the Inner Harbor) a few days ago.

The logo, which was the company’s signature linked “UA” symbol, has since been painted over. (Yeah. Because a big fat black square totally looks better … )

Under Armour said the logo was an advertisement in support of a volleyball tournament held at the Baltimore Convention Center. Under Armour wasn’t a sponsor of the tournament but it has done similar things for the city’s Recreation and Parks department in the past to welcome sporting events, according to the department’s spokeswoman.

Now an article in today’s Baltimore Sun says painting the logo on park property may have been illegal. Although the company coordinated with the parks department, a permit was not obtained from the city.

For a company that has been lauded for its pumped-up ad campaigns in the past, this is a major boo-boo. I don’t think Under Armour has received this much flak for a marketing move since it paid just under $3 million for a Super Bowl ad in 2008. And even then at least the company was getting a lot of bang for its advertising dollar instead of sticking its tail between its legs and covering up a PR miscue.

How bad is this mistake for Under Armour? Are the media and residents making too much of it? And how long, by the way, will it take to grow out that ugly black square of a reminder on Federal Hill?

It is tourist season, you know …

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Under Armour’s Kevin Plank and Steve Battista can probably share a thing or two with Chrysler execs this week. Ever since the troubled auto maker snatched up a 60-second spot during this year’s Super Bowl, the company has been the butt of criticism from consumers who say Chrysler is wasting its money.

Chrylser plans to showcase its Dodge brand in its first Super Bowl ad since 2004.

At about $3 million/30 seconds, consumers are questioning the manufacturer’s judgment in spending an estimated $6 million for a single ad. Baltimore-based Under Armour also received criticism in 2008 when it chose to debut its first non-cleated athletic shoe in a 60-second Super Bowl advertisement. Analysts downgraded its stock in response and questioned the advertising blitz. It’s stock price also went down by a third in a single month.

At the time, CEO Kevin Plank and Vice President of Brand Steve Battista said the ad was like a coming out party for Under Armour to expose the brand to more people in its target audience. But actions speak louder than words — at the company’s investors day a few months later, one of the first things Plank told the audience was that the company would NOT be buying a Super Bowl ad the following year.

The consensus from the advertising world seems to be that Chrysler’s decision is a good one if the ad serves its purpose — which is to generate enthusiasm for the brand and get people buying Chrysler again. And that’s something that will take months to determine.

In Under Armour’s case, despite the flak the company received for buying the ad in 2008, the move hasn’t hurt the company’s image and in hindsight, one could argue it was the right decision for the time.

As Battista put it a year ago, in 2008, “no one had ever even seen what Under Armour [non-cleated] footwear looked like. The Super Bowl is great for that.”

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OK, maybe it’s not the soap opera-esque love triangle that headline may have you think. But when I got the news release that Rawlings and Ripken Baseball Inc. are teaming up to produce a new line of training aids, the first thought that ran through my head was, “Hey, wait — didn’t Ripken Baseball just sign a deal with Under Armour a couple months ago?”

The nonprofit, a marketing and sales company headed by Orioles Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., signed an outfitter deal with the Under Armour in April that includes being the official uniform provider for Ripken Baseball (including three minor league franchises) and title sponsorship for all 25 Ripken youth baseball tournaments.

This week, Ripken Baseball (also based in Baltimore), announced it is launching the Rawlings Five Tool Training line. The line will focus on developing the skills needed to become a “five tool” player including hitting for power, hitting for average, speed, fielding and throwing. I imagine the training line will be sold at the Ripken Store, which recently launched online and is a little sparse in products at the moment.

OK, I know Under Armour is more the shoes and apparel company than it is gear. And to boot, Cal Ripken used Rawlings equipment his entire career so it’s a natural fit. But one of the big kickers for Under Armour teaming up with Ripken was that it makes it more visible to youths, a market it is trying to expand in. If the kids I’m marketing to are all turning around and buying a competitor’s training equipment, I don’t know how pleased I’d be about that.

What do you think? Is this a close call? Or am I just being petty?

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The news today about Orioles owner Peter Angelos meeting with state officials last night about saving the Preakness Stakes got me thinking — does anyone remember when Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank bought Sagamore Farm a couple years back?

At the time, Plank said his motivation was, in part, the Preakness:

“Could you imagine someone saying, ‘Live from Santa Anita, the Preakness Stakes?’ It would be a tragedy,” Plank was quoted as saying last year. “We need to stand up and fight for that. The only way to do that is by having a healthy,striving industry here.”

I imagine Plank is a little distracted by Under Armour’s share price, the company’s new line of running shoes and the planned basketball shoe slated to hit the market next year. But as a farm owner who once said his dream was to win the Triple Crown, I wonder what he thinks about the latest developments with Pimlico Race Course being on the auction block and the possibility of the state stepping in to ensure Preakness stays here.

If Angelos is stepping up to the plate (no pun intended), should we expect other Marylanders in sports business follow suit? And who else might be a logical player here?

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