October 29, 2025 • 12 mins
Graham, Brad, and Seth look back on our time in Baltimore with Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. Graham jokes about finally getting the right email address for Plank after years of trying, and the crew reflects on how impressed they were by the efficiency of the shoot day.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So we spent the day in Baltimorewith Under Armour founder Kevin
Plank for DP Seth, EP Brad, I amGraham.
We are back. I would like to say starting
out, I had kind of an A personala personal affinity for this one
because I have been after Plank for more than probably a dozen
(00:24):
years trying to profile him for an episode of the show.
I even flew to Baltimore years ago to meet with his people
trying to make this happen. And one thing or another always
got in the way. And then I run into him on a few
occasions at Rodger Goodell's party Super Bowl week and was
(00:48):
just kind of pushing him a little bit.
And finally, he gave me his correct e-mail address.
I realized I'd been emailing thewrong one for many years, and I
think he's changed it a number of times.
And Long story short, that led to a fun day this summer with
(01:14):
the hell of an entrepreneur. What's just?
Cool to meet the guy like when Idon't know what you I mean, our
ages are a little bit different,but close enough.
But like I think it was probablylike high school for me, maybe
early high school where like Under Armour was the thing and
like Under Armour, like you knewexact I want everybody wanted
Under Armour and it was it was the cold weather gear that like
(01:36):
any athlete had and it was I want an Under Armour.
I want Under Armour. And so it was cool to like meet
that guy, the guy who literally started it from his grandma's
basement and to see what he's built was, was really cool.
It was weird to see the white like like the original white
long sleeve Under Armour, because I remember having that
when I played football in high school.
(01:58):
Whenever I played football in high school, I remember a coach
like making making fun of me because I was like, I was
wearing that under my pads and like decked out in Under Armour
stuff. And he was like, darling, you
don't even play. I'm just like on the sideline
decked out Under Armour. When did I?
Look good, when did you play? Football, junior high and high
school. OK I still remember I switched
(02:19):
schools in 6th grade. We were required to do 2 sports
per year, so I was considering doing tackle football and tackle
football was one of the things. You do tackle.
Well, because in what? In 6th grade, it's like there's
flag football, tackle football. And so I remember in PE that was
(02:40):
one of the things you could try out.
And there they did these drills where I don't know what they're
called, but it's one person going after the other person
head on with a group of guys standing around you in a circle.
What? Yeah, that.
And I just remember this kid that I was doing it with who was
pretty scrawny, like just destroyed me.
(03:06):
I mean, like, I didn't know if somebody could run through
somebody that that especially somebody that looked like that.
And I remember going home that day being like this.
Never again. So should.
Have been wearing your Under Armour dude.
Maybe. There you go, I play football.
Freshman year, yeah. There you.
There you go. Yeah, definitely none of that.
(03:27):
I was good on the freshman team,but as soon as it was like JV
varsity, I didn't hit puberty till I was like 20 years old, so
I was not. It's interesting looking at
Kevin, he played football as well, doing a lot of the things
that he was the the wedge Buster, which means he was doing
probably a lot of the crazy thatyou just referred to where
you're just running at guys trying to blow people up.
(03:47):
Yeah. Looking at him, it's like, I
don't see. I mean, you look back at this
highlights, OK, Like he looks like a player.
It's tough to see that now so far removed.
But he made a name for himself in Maryland.
Yeah, and somebody who has always had that entrepreneurial
desire, he was what had a flowerbusiness in college and one
(04:08):
thing just kind of led to the next.
Obviously you're talking about Under Armour in high school, and
that was the I mean the the company in the brand exploded,
was killing it forever. Has had some more challenging
times as of late. He was out as CEO, now back as
(04:29):
CEO, and it was really interesting kind of talking to
him about that because let's face it, like no company only
ascends forever. There are ebbs and flows and you
know, that's just part of the deal.
But then you're with him and touring this campus and it is
like nothing short of mind blowing.
(04:52):
Yeah, that campus was crazy. It was also the most like, well
organized, not by U.S. tour of anything we've ever done where
like he would lead us somewhere and then the person responsible
for that department was waiting for us, lead us to the next
room. That department had is waiting
for us like just throughout the entire campus.
It was like perfectly organized.It was.
(05:13):
So organic and it helped the clip come together because it
what we didn't have to like, figure out.
Weird. How do we get to talking to this
person? Well, no.
Kevin just takes us to that person.
Introduce. Yeah.
And then we're moving again. It was so organic.
Yeah. The edit was just like, usually
everything was like, we don't typically order things or edit
things like in order of how theyhappened.
And this one we absolutely did. Everything was just.
(05:35):
I give Matt and Jen on Kevin's team a ton of credit for that.
They, I know, busted their ass to pull this all together for
us. And rarely does it work out as
well as it did here, and that's because of their efforts.
(05:56):
I I don't know about you guys, but I, I think the coolest part
for me of that tour was walking into, was it the innovation Lab?
I forgot the shoes, yeah. Yeah, that was nuts.
Oh, is that that too? Yeah, both, both of those things
were like, what the heck is going on here?
It's. It's crazy that that exists,
(06:17):
yeah. Because they had different
parts, because we were we were talking to the the one lady
Candace and like, I can't remember how many different
zones that dummy had just like in its foot alone, but I could
tell you like all these different data points of like
it. It felt like why would you need
to know all of that? But but I guess you.
(06:39):
Do or When you're competing withNike and Adidas and all the big
boys, I guess you look for any possible advantage.
It seems to be like their niche,right?
It's like the the real like nuance of design versus just
like it looking cool. It's like 100% performance is
everything they think about. Yeah.
I, I don't know about you guys, but we've featured a number of
(07:01):
business Titans now and you know, they're all smart, but I
wouldn't, I would argue that it's less like intellect that
stands out when you're with these people and just more of
this kind of unrelenting work ethic and just being on all the
time and having this drive. What do you guys think?
(07:24):
No, it's, you're right. It's I've, there's been multiple
guests we've had where I'm like,you have more money than you'll
ever need and you're still so focused on every little tiny
detail of things. I am not built like that.
Yeah, it's it's impressive. Yeah, I think in part, I think
that plays into, you know, he wants to be so involved in
because he has that drive. And, you know, you can disagree
(07:48):
if you want, but I think in partthat's probably played into why
he's gotten criticized over the years is because he's so
involved and people have disagreed with how involved he
should be and with some of the decisions he's made.
And we got into that a lot in the interview.
What's interesting, I mean, you can, there's a Direct Line from
(08:08):
there's a commonality between that and these other founders
that we profile. Formula Ones, Bernie Ecclestone
micromanagers Starbucks, Howard Schultz micromanagers,
Starwood's Barry Stern look, micromanage on and on and on.
And you can certainly make the argument that's to their
detriment, but you can also makejust as strong of an argument
(08:30):
that if they did not have that quality, these companies would
have never turned into what theyare.
So it is kind of an interesting a character trait of among these
folks. Yeah, and it's like where you
can't, you can never it. The company's their baby like
they built it. So it's like when they want to
get back involved again, it's like, how do you how do you
(08:54):
fault the guy for wanting to tryto fix the company or change the
company or improve in general the company you created?
Before we go anything else, you.Got to talk about the Pogo
stick. Oh, do we I?
Think so? OK, you when was the last time
you Because I I don't think I followed up after you did the
activity. When was the last time you have
you ever been on a Pogo stick? Before when I was a kid, yeah.
(09:17):
I was impressed. I didn't.
I really I thought you would getmaybe 2.
And I could have gone for a lot longer.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you did you.
Fall on purpose. Did I fall?
Well, I don't do. That sorry, not.
Fall. That was what I was afraid of.
That was a concrete floor. Yeah.
And between you and Kevin, I mean, you guys aren't young,
young men. That it was gonna speak for
yourself. Well, you are an entire year
(09:38):
older than I am that it was going to it could have, which
would have been great for the episode.
Bad for future episodes. Bad for future, but really it
would have really tied like the end of the episode together all.
It takes, you know, you, you bounce the wrong way and you
trip falling backwards and. Yeah, I, I was less concerned
about hurting myself there. The one that I was concerned
(09:59):
about hurting myself was if I got on the unicycle with Steve
Young, because I, I tried momentarily to get up on that
and I'm like, Oh no, I'm literally going to crack my
skull open. I was.
More worried for Kevin than I was for you.
More just because. That would be bad.
He's. He's got some ears on you, so it
was like just trying to and he'sthe guest.
(10:21):
You're you, and so you always got.
To he takes care of himself though, which is funny because
he did do like a full workout right before the interview and
he just was sweating, no? He was well.
Oh, the other piece we left out.I felt so bad, you know, I it's
like a point of pride for me now.
I haven't worn makeup in like 2 seasons I think.
(10:43):
But they hired a makeup person for the shoot in.
You were kind of annoyed that I didn't wear it because he was
going to be the. Guest is wearing makeup and
you're not because he was getting really obvious that
you're not wearing. Makeup and then he gets there
the makeup person that they hire, he doesn't end up using
eyes that are so easiest work day ever for this makeup artist
(11:03):
who I'm sure was sweet as can be.
Could somebody have used a little bit of makeup more than
that for that? Because he just came from a.
Workout He was just flush and red and shiny and he's like, I
don't need it and I was like. And.
Then there's a nice suites that they had provided to do it.
You're getting blasted by Sun and yeah.
Enough. That was a sick.
(11:24):
I got to stay in that suite. Yeah, the night before and that
shower was, I was talking about it earlier.
I think I took like an hour longshower.
The part I guess we've left out is his efforts to revitalize
Baltimore and kind of the downtown area.
He's there. There's a specific part of Port
(11:44):
Covington, Port Port Cuffington that's like.
The cobblestone where we were. No, that port Covington's the
Peninsula. Where right?
Acts like the HQ is on. On the port.
He's made a hell of an investment.
And you know, it seems like often times when there are rich
(12:05):
folks giving back, somebody somewhere figures out of a
reason to criticize that person for their efforts.
But it is clear from talking to him, he just has a passion for
doing good where he's from, wants to do right by his
(12:28):
community. I mean, the UA house is a good
example of that. Nothing wrong with making a
profit along the way too, but give him a lot of credit for
putting his money where his mouth is and cool dude.
Yeah, he goes cool. Agreed for EP Brad and DP Seth.
I am Graham, we will see you next time.
So we spent the day in Baltimorewith Under Armour founder Kevin
Plank for DP Seth, EP Brad, I amGraham.
We are back. I would like to say starting
out, I had kind of an A personala personal affinity for this one
because I have been after Plank for more than probably a dozen
(00:24):
years trying to profile him for an episode of the show.
I even flew to Baltimore years ago to meet with his people
trying to make this happen. And one thing or another always
got in the way. And then I run into him on a few
occasions at Rodger Goodell's party Super Bowl week and was
(00:48):
just kind of pushing him a little bit.
And finally, he gave me his correct e-mail address.
I realized I'd been emailing thewrong one for many years, and I
think he's changed it a number of times.
And Long story short, that led to a fun day this summer with
(01:14):
the hell of an entrepreneur. What's just?
Cool to meet the guy like when Idon't know what you I mean, our
ages are a little bit different,but close enough.
But like I think it was probablylike high school for me, maybe
early high school where like Under Armour was the thing and
like Under Armour, like you knewexact I want everybody wanted
Under Armour and it was it was the cold weather gear that like
(01:36):
any athlete had and it was I want an Under Armour.
I want Under Armour. And so it was cool to like meet
that guy, the guy who literally started it from his grandma's
basement and to see what he's built was, was really cool.
It was weird to see the white like like the original white
long sleeve Under Armour, because I remember having that
when I played football in high school.
(01:58):
Whenever I played football in high school, I remember a coach
like making making fun of me because I was like, I was
wearing that under my pads and like decked out in Under Armour
stuff. And he was like, darling, you
don't even play. I'm just like on the sideline
decked out Under Armour. When did I?
Look good, when did you play? Football, junior high and high
school. OK I still remember I switched
(02:19):
schools in 6th grade. We were required to do 2 sports
per year, so I was considering doing tackle football and tackle
football was one of the things. You do tackle.
Well, because in what? In 6th grade, it's like there's
flag football, tackle football. And so I remember in PE that was
(02:40):
one of the things you could try out.
And there they did these drills where I don't know what they're
called, but it's one person going after the other person
head on with a group of guys standing around you in a circle.
What? Yeah, that.
And I just remember this kid that I was doing it with who was
pretty scrawny, like just destroyed me.
(03:06):
I mean, like, I didn't know if somebody could run through
somebody that that especially somebody that looked like that.
And I remember going home that day being like this.
Never again. So should.
Have been wearing your Under Armour dude.
Maybe. There you go, I play football.
Freshman year, yeah. There you.
There you go. Yeah, definitely none of that.
(03:27):
I was good on the freshman team,but as soon as it was like JV
varsity, I didn't hit puberty till I was like 20 years old, so
I was not. It's interesting looking at
Kevin, he played football as well, doing a lot of the things
that he was the the wedge Buster, which means he was doing
probably a lot of the crazy thatyou just referred to where
you're just running at guys trying to blow people up.
(03:47):
Yeah. Looking at him, it's like, I
don't see. I mean, you look back at this
highlights, OK, Like he looks like a player.
It's tough to see that now so far removed.
But he made a name for himself in Maryland.
Yeah, and somebody who has always had that entrepreneurial
desire, he was what had a flowerbusiness in college and one
(04:08):
thing just kind of led to the next.
Obviously you're talking about Under Armour in high school, and
that was the I mean the the company in the brand exploded,
was killing it forever. Has had some more challenging
times as of late. He was out as CEO, now back as
(04:29):
CEO, and it was really interesting kind of talking to
him about that because let's face it, like no company only
ascends forever. There are ebbs and flows and you
know, that's just part of the deal.
But then you're with him and touring this campus and it is
like nothing short of mind blowing.
(04:52):
Yeah, that campus was crazy. It was also the most like, well
organized, not by U.S. tour of anything we've ever done where
like he would lead us somewhere and then the person responsible
for that department was waiting for us, lead us to the next
room. That department had is waiting
for us like just throughout the entire campus.
It was like perfectly organized.It was.
(05:13):
So organic and it helped the clip come together because it
what we didn't have to like, figure out.
Weird. How do we get to talking to this
person? Well, no.
Kevin just takes us to that person.
Introduce. Yeah.
And then we're moving again. It was so organic.
Yeah. The edit was just like, usually
everything was like, we don't typically order things or edit
things like in order of how theyhappened.
And this one we absolutely did. Everything was just.
(05:35):
I give Matt and Jen on Kevin's team a ton of credit for that.
They, I know, busted their ass to pull this all together for
us. And rarely does it work out as
well as it did here, and that's because of their efforts.
(05:56):
I I don't know about you guys, but I, I think the coolest part
for me of that tour was walking into, was it the innovation Lab?
I forgot the shoes, yeah. Yeah, that was nuts.
Oh, is that that too? Yeah, both, both of those things
were like, what the heck is going on here?
It's. It's crazy that that exists,
(06:17):
yeah. Because they had different
parts, because we were we were talking to the the one lady
Candace and like, I can't remember how many different
zones that dummy had just like in its foot alone, but I could
tell you like all these different data points of like
it. It felt like why would you need
to know all of that? But but I guess you.
(06:39):
Do or When you're competing withNike and Adidas and all the big
boys, I guess you look for any possible advantage.
It seems to be like their niche,right?
It's like the the real like nuance of design versus just
like it looking cool. It's like 100% performance is
everything they think about. Yeah.
I, I don't know about you guys, but we've featured a number of
(07:01):
business Titans now and you know, they're all smart, but I
wouldn't, I would argue that it's less like intellect that
stands out when you're with these people and just more of
this kind of unrelenting work ethic and just being on all the
time and having this drive. What do you guys think?
(07:24):
No, it's, you're right. It's I've, there's been multiple
guests we've had where I'm like,you have more money than you'll
ever need and you're still so focused on every little tiny
detail of things. I am not built like that.
Yeah, it's it's impressive. Yeah, I think in part, I think
that plays into, you know, he wants to be so involved in
because he has that drive. And, you know, you can disagree
(07:48):
if you want, but I think in partthat's probably played into why
he's gotten criticized over the years is because he's so
involved and people have disagreed with how involved he
should be and with some of the decisions he's made.
And we got into that a lot in the interview.
What's interesting, I mean, you can, there's a Direct Line from
(08:08):
there's a commonality between that and these other founders
that we profile. Formula Ones, Bernie Ecclestone
micromanagers Starbucks, Howard Schultz micromanagers,
Starwood's Barry Stern look, micromanage on and on and on.
And you can certainly make the argument that's to their
detriment, but you can also makejust as strong of an argument
(08:30):
that if they did not have that quality, these companies would
have never turned into what theyare.
So it is kind of an interesting a character trait of among these
folks. Yeah, and it's like where you
can't, you can never it. The company's their baby like
they built it. So it's like when they want to
get back involved again, it's like, how do you how do you
(08:54):
fault the guy for wanting to tryto fix the company or change the
company or improve in general the company you created?
Before we go anything else, you.Got to talk about the Pogo
stick. Oh, do we I?
Think so? OK, you when was the last time
you Because I I don't think I followed up after you did the
activity. When was the last time you have
you ever been on a Pogo stick? Before when I was a kid, yeah.
(09:17):
I was impressed. I didn't.
I really I thought you would getmaybe 2.
And I could have gone for a lot longer.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you did you.
Fall on purpose. Did I fall?
Well, I don't do. That sorry, not.
Fall. That was what I was afraid of.
That was a concrete floor. Yeah.
And between you and Kevin, I mean, you guys aren't young,
young men. That it was gonna speak for
yourself. Well, you are an entire year
(09:38):
older than I am that it was going to it could have, which
would have been great for the episode.
Bad for future episodes. Bad for future, but really it
would have really tied like the end of the episode together all.
It takes, you know, you, you bounce the wrong way and you
trip falling backwards and. Yeah, I, I was less concerned
about hurting myself there. The one that I was concerned
(09:59):
about hurting myself was if I got on the unicycle with Steve
Young, because I, I tried momentarily to get up on that
and I'm like, Oh no, I'm literally going to crack my
skull open. I was.
More worried for Kevin than I was for you.
More just because. That would be bad.
He's. He's got some ears on you, so it
was like just trying to and he'sthe guest.
(10:21):
You're you, and so you always got.
To he takes care of himself though, which is funny because
he did do like a full workout right before the interview and
he just was sweating, no? He was well.
Oh, the other piece we left out.I felt so bad, you know, I it's
like a point of pride for me now.
I haven't worn makeup in like 2 seasons I think.
(10:43):
But they hired a makeup person for the shoot in.
You were kind of annoyed that I didn't wear it because he was
going to be the. Guest is wearing makeup and
you're not because he was getting really obvious that
you're not wearing. Makeup and then he gets there
the makeup person that they hire, he doesn't end up using
eyes that are so easiest work day ever for this makeup artist
(11:03):
who I'm sure was sweet as can be.
Could somebody have used a little bit of makeup more than
that for that? Because he just came from a.
Workout He was just flush and red and shiny and he's like, I
don't need it and I was like. And.
Then there's a nice suites that they had provided to do it.
You're getting blasted by Sun and yeah.
Enough. That was a sick.
(11:24):
I got to stay in that suite. Yeah, the night before and that
shower was, I was talking about it earlier.
I think I took like an hour longshower.
The part I guess we've left out is his efforts to revitalize
Baltimore and kind of the downtown area.
He's there. There's a specific part of Port
(11:44):
Covington, Port Port Cuffington that's like.
The cobblestone where we were. No, that port Covington's the
Peninsula. Where right?
Acts like the HQ is on. On the port.
He's made a hell of an investment.
And you know, it seems like often times when there are rich
(12:05):
folks giving back, somebody somewhere figures out of a
reason to criticize that person for their efforts.
But it is clear from talking to him, he just has a passion for
doing good where he's from, wants to do right by his
(12:28):
community. I mean, the UA house is a good
example of that. Nothing wrong with making a
profit along the way too, but give him a lot of credit for
putting his money where his mouth is and cool dude.
Yeah, he goes cool. Agreed for EP Brad and DP Seth.
I am Graham, we will see you next time.
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