Photo by Iain Ding.
The focus of Under Armour’s connection to Georgetown recently has been on the company’s plans to open a store in the old Nathan’s building. But GM realized that starting last year, the company has been putting out a subtle tribute to the company’s Georgetown roots.
It comes in the form of the store’s “lifestyle” non-athletic brand “35th and O”. This isn’t a testament to Under Armour’s founder’s love of Saxby’s but rather a reference to his grandmother’s house. He explained to the Post last year:
[W]e bootstrapped, and my first year in business, we did $17,000 in sales out of a little townhouse on the corner of 35th and O Street in Georgetown…It was three floors. I was living upstairs, and the kitchen was up there. I had a sales office on the ground floor, which was essentially the dining room and living room. In the basement, we kept inventory. And in the corner of the sales office, we kept “The Price is Right” on the television.
What’s odd is that with his company set to open a flagship store in Georgetown, the neighborhood his family has lived in for generations, and in which he recently purchased a mansion, yet the brand doesn’t trade on the Georgetown brand at all:
It’s like the anti-Georgetown Cupcake.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
Under Armour doesn’t trade on the Georgetown brand because it’s too associated with the University. UA, on the other hand, is strongly associated with the University of Maryland, and many Twerps still bear a grudge against Georgetown for perceived basketball scheduling slights/feuding between John Thompson Jr. and Gary Williams. Long after Pops had retired, that grudge was picked up by Maryland AD Kevin Anderson, who proceeded to make an ass of himself (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/maryland-and-georgetown-wont-play-unless-forced-and-thats-not-right/2012/12/06/9cee7c4a-3ff3-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html) by threatening to refuse to schedule Georgetown in any sport.
Pingback: TGIF | little bitty city one