Steph Curry’s special new MVP sneakers sold out almost immediately
Shortly after the widely expected word came down Tuesday that Stephen Curry had not only won his second straight NBA Most Valuable Player award, but become the first player in NBA history to get every single first-place vote in MVP balloting, Steph’s pals at Under Armour — who, as you might have heard, took Curry away from Nike and inked him to an endorsement deal back in 2013 — announced that they were celebrating with some special footwear honoring the back-to-back bid:
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But if you wanted the privilege of copping two pairs of the Golden State Warriors superstar’s golden sneakers — one of the Limited Edition Curry Ones, and one of the Limited Edition Curry Twos — you had to move as fast as Steph does on the court, because the Back-2-Back MVP Pack wasn’t available for long. From Lorraine Mirabella of the Baltimore Sun:
Soon after the NBA’s much anticipated announcement, the brand had launched and sold out of limited edition Curry basketball shoes. By early afternoon, the Curry MVP Back 2 Back Pack, including shoes Curry wore in each MVP season, sold out at $400 each in pre-orders online.
Under Armour has Curry and his signature basketball shoe line to thank for much of the surge in footwear sales, up more than 60 percent in the first quarter, as the brand takes on much larger rival Nike.
The company said it’s celebrating “Stephen’s outstanding achievement” with the commemorative footwear and a men’s Back 2 Back MVP SC T-shirt for $35.
If you missed out, though, don’t fret; you’ll have another crack at the kicks soon.
By that June 24 release date, of course, Curry and his teammates hope to be celebrating another back-to-back achievement.
While almost immediately exhausting a pre-sale of a special edition item celebrating the rarefied air Curry has reached offers some indication of just how hot a commodity he’s become, the true measure of Steph’s reach in the shoe game goes beyond mere “collector stuff,” according to the great Russ Bengtson of Complex:
It’s the everyday legacy-making that really matters, and Curry has been doing that as well, building a sneaker history for Under Armour in real time. A couple of years ago, they retroed a previously unavailable shoe to honor then-rookie Brandon Jennings’s 55-point game. In the future, they’ll have a lot more to look back on.
Right now, Curry is the everything of Under Armour, despite the presence of other MVPs and champions on the roster, including Bryce Harper, Cam Newton, and Jordan Spieth (and even The Rock). Those other guys provide prestige to the brand, but, among them, only Curry gives an inroad into the basketball shoe market—one which, if the numbers are to be believed, he’ll dominate this year. Projections have him as the leading basketball signature shoe seller, period, for 2016, with $160 million to LeBron’s $150 million. (Jordan is a brand moreso than a signature model at this point.) Not bad for a company that wasn’t even selling basketball sneakers 10 years ago.
Not bad at all. Then again, we’ve become all too familiar with just how little time Steph needs to get hot enough to produce monster windfalls that leave unsuspecting business titans slack-jawed. Isn’t that right, Paul Allen?
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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