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How Champion Became Cool Again

They swallowed their pride and accepted fashion runs on
trends

Tameem Rahman

May 28 · 5 min read

Photo by Owen Barker

When I was in elementary school, wearing Champion clothing meant you were “broke”
because you shopped at Walmart. You were a loser.

Now, if a kid wears their apparel their parents are probably “ballin’” (affluent) and they get to
control who plays tag with them during recess.

How did Champion become cool… again?

Created by author
Like any story, an epic comeback is only epic if you know where one stood before that and
how hard they fell.

So, let’s examine how the multi-billion-dollar protagonist lost her throne.

Champion once led the clothing and fashion industry.

The founders, William and Abraham Feinbloom, found success from selling their products
directly to college teams like Michigan State. Therefore, the brand’s popularity grew rapidly
especially with students and other colleges.

Around this time, the company hit home by creating a historical invention that would change
fashion as we know it: the hoodie. They served as a highly efficient athletic wear for athletes
in colder climates.

Soon thereafter, they created the Reverse Weave technology. This featured anti-shrink and
heat preventive designs which even today are used by clothing brands all around us.

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These two innovations made Champion the face of sportswear in America.

They also made important partnerships, like with the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) and the National Football League (NFL) which increased their exposure
and doubled sales in a matter of years (1985–88).

To make things even better (worse in hindsight), the Sara Lee Corporation bought out
Champion for $320M in cash. This allowed the company to expand its brand even further
with more resources at hand.

The brand became so liked that they were selected to produce all of the uniforms in the
National Basketball Association (NBA) and created the Olympic Basketball “Dream Team”
jerseys in 1992.

Now, they held the world’s attention — but, not for long.

Unfortunately, things only went downhill from there.

The Downfall

Their decline was because of two reasons:

• The Sara Lee Corporation turned their backs on Champion

• The Xtreme Football League (XFL) started to sink and brought Champion down with
them
This, in turn, begat the third reason:

• People lost interest

The Sara Lee Corporation was no longer paying much attention to Champion and had their
eyes on the food industry. As a result, they sold a portion of Champion, Champion Europe, to
focus on more profitable sales of food and household products.

This meant that Champion lost the abundance of resources and capabilities they once had,
which triggered the gradual decline.

Then came the second horn. See, Champion was selected to produce outfits for the XFL
league. But as XFL fell apart, quickly dissipating under the NFL’s shadow, Champion took
the blow with them.

Gradually, their spotlight was taken by brands like Nike and Adidas. Consumer interest
followed suit. Soon, over 100 employees were fired and Champion had to resort to selling at
Walmart and Target.

Their downfall was from a series of bad business decisions.

Once a king of the fashion industry, now a commoner hanging from shirt racks steps away
from the dairy aisle in some supermarket.

Could they reclaim their throne? Was it possible to climb back to relevance?

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The Comeback

In 2006, the Sara Lee Corporation became fully invested in the food industry. So, they
announced HanesBrands Inc. as the new parent company that would contain all of their
clothing brands.

Ten years later, HanesBrands bought back Champion Europe and reunited it with its origin
company.

This was the sputtering kickstart of Champion’s return to the spotlight.

What really got their engine running again was accepting that they were no longer “cool”
anymore. As you can imagine, it was a hard pill to swallow.

So, they did the only thing they could do: be cool again by hanging out with the cool kids.

In 2010, they partnered up with Supreme (a growing brand attracting all the hype) to
collaborate on some products — which were successful.

The success of the partnership prompted more collaborations and opened the door for
opportunities with other designer brands like UNDEFEATED, BAPE, Wood Wood, and
Vetements.

Screenshots by author
These brands, to this day, hold significant hype, and celebrities wear them daily. So, if the
cool people are wearing cool brands, it must be the coolest cool thing ever and we should
wear them too, you know, to be cool.

Yes, consumer logic is that simple.

Screenshots by author
Although partnerships was a smart marketing move, attributing all their lucrative success to it
would be inaccurate.

It also had to do with external trends, or luck.

See, around the time they started making a comeback with all the collaborations, vintage
wear and athleisure were trending in the market (still is) and guess who specializes in those
types of products?

Champion.

For some reason, we decided to bring back ‘80s and ‘90s wear — I guess we needed a change
from our futurized society. And we began to casualize athletic wear for everyday use (I guess
it’s comfortable).

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Regardless of the reasons, brands like Fila, Tommy Hilfiger, and Guess joined Champion in
their moment of glory as they became the next big thing again. Therefore, they focused on
generating more products and designs that fit these trends and for maximum hype, continue to
partner with designer brands.

By 2022, the company aims for $2 billion in sales, last year, they reached $1.9 billion. I think
it’s safe to say that they’re well on their way to surpass this expectation.

They’re happy, kids at recess are happy, and we all feel cool.

What Champion Can Teach Us

When we’re thriving at something and fall hard, it can be hard to swallow our pride and
accept the loss. But like Champion, if we admit it and reach out to those doing better than us
for support, recovery can become a lot simpler.

The feeling of “being cool” also seems to be an important selling factor. In psychological
terms, humans have an innate desire to feel important and belong — after all, we’re a social
species. Following trends and wearing cool brands is a simple demonstration of how strongly
this desire can influence us.

If we want to sell something, appealing to a trend is a must — it was half of the equation for
Champion’s success.

Move with the market, and the market will follow you. I think I heard that somewhere.

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