Under Armour Abandons Portland For Baltimore As Keith Wilson's City Implodes

[00:00:00]A major sportswear company is breaking ties with its Portland campus. Under Armour announced this week that it will be closing its office in Southwest Portland by the end of this year, less than a decade after its grand opening.

[00:00:13]>> A spokesperson with the company says while they are planning to close the current Portland facility, the company is not withdrawing all operations from the Rose City. It plans to move some functions to Baltimore and New York, and others will be relocated to a new space in Portland. The company did not say how many employees would be impacted.

[00:00:32]>> They're planning to move out by the end of the year. According to the Portland Business Journal, about 60 people currently work in the Portland Portland office.

[00:00:41]>> Under Armour said the Portland office employed 60 people and that it will lease a much smaller office in a new location by the end of 2026.

[00:00:49]The company opened its 70,000 square foot Portland office in 2017 and footwear sales were down 10.8% last year to about $1.1 billion.

[00:00:59]>> and test new footwear. At the time, Under Armour's co-founder Kip Fulks says Portland was a natural fit for expansion with Nike and Adidas driving a booming footwear industry.

[00:01:12]>> [music] >> I love it when they say we're we're we're moving to Baltimore so that we can better serve athletes. Like, you can serve athletes from anywhere. Why don't we just come right out and say it?

[00:01:28]Portland isn't where we want to be doing business. Why don't we just come right out and say LA isn't where we want to be doing business.

[00:01:35]Seattle isn't where we want to be doing business, but that's kind of we just we just don't say that because oh, it might offend somebody in one of these cities and then as Under Armour does its mass exodus, somebody might get their feelings worked up, right?

[00:01:51]Hey, you know what? Taxes were too damn high in Portland.

[00:01:55]Um, business environment is just just like Seattle, just like Washington state. You know, Oregon is is tough place to do business cuz of overregulation, massive taxes, and just an overall you know, flip-flop from what it used to be.

[00:02:15]Which was no, you know, no taxes, no income taxes, and just let her rip. Let her rip.

[00:02:23]We're not there anymore. Under Armour understands that, and they're basically just going to, you know, they're going to take their toys and go to Baltimore.

[00:02:32]Under Armour Incorporated will close its flagship Portland office later this year, move some operations to its Baltimore headquarters.

[00:02:41]One of the things I was thinking about is these these Democrats running like Portland and Seattle, they've got to be thinking at some point, when are all of these businesses going to stop moving out? Are they all going to move out? They've They've got to They've got to They know this is going on. They know people are hitting them up. Hey, Under Armour's moving out.

[00:03:05]What's the dealio?

[00:03:07]Well, they wanted to consolidate in Baltimore because they can work with athletes better.

[00:03:13]And you're left with Mm, really? Ah, you just want to get out of Portland. And you know what?

[00:03:19]I get that. I get that. I mean, Portland, Oregon, just an absolutely beautiful city. Aside from the trash and the homelessness, and the homelessness is what causes the trash, and you know, it used to be needles, now it's tin foil.

[00:03:33]And I mean, the the physical characteristics of Portland are stunning.

[00:03:38]Stunning. You got mountains, you got the Cascades to the east, you got big mountains like St. Helens, Mount Hood I mean, they're just right there. You got a Columbia River, massive river. You got the Willamette River literally going along downtown.

[00:03:54]I mean, it's some beautiful, beautiful country. And then off to the west, you've got the Olympic Mountains, but because of the way Portland's situated, tougher to see. You can see the Cascades back to the east easier. I mean, it's a beautiful setting. It's just run Yeah, most big, beautiful cities are run by lefties cuz that's who ends up running them cuz the dynamics of urban court culture.

[00:04:17]And they just run them into the ground.

[00:04:19]Hey, let's just see how badly can make this beautiful setting. Sports apparel company has long used Portland as the base for its footwear operations, and in 2017, made a splash when it converted a former YMCA building into an office for 100 people.

[00:04:34]Under Armour has scaled back its Portland presence since hasn't everybody? I haven't done a story I haven't even read a story of a major company moving into Portland in Lord knows how long. There's been one or two into Seattle, more into Bellevue, but that's, you know, it's its own kind of stand-alone set of facts there. So, it's Portland presence since and about 60 people are currently based out of the office, said the communications officer. Under Armour plans to open a much smaller, and when they put that in quotes, they mean tiny, little, not big, much smaller office in Portland, but has not yet signed a lease.

[00:05:17]All right. Handful of roles will be impacted by the decision to close the office, but the majority of Under Armour's Portland employees will be relocated to Baltimore.

[00:05:28]That reminds me of you know, the Starbucks saying to its employees, "Hey, you're going to be going to Tennessee."

[00:05:37]And people from from Seattle, there is a there is a real undercurrent of the Democrats and particularly progressives, people that have been wildly brainwashed, not wanting to give in to the notion that red states, red cities, red counties are run better.

[00:05:59]They just want to live in this make-believe world that, "Hey, um you know, my cost of living is really high."

[00:06:07]Ignore the fact that we've had for decades here in Washington state of Democrat supermajority rule. And now we've got literally Democratic Socialists of America taking over, and things aren't looking They're They're not looking up. They're They're not They're not They're not going the right direction. They're They're going over here.

[00:06:29]One of the things in Seattle yesterday was new study came out that basically said the payroll jump-start tax, which is tax Amazon, is paying for about half of Seattle's general budget fund.

[00:06:43]Half.

[00:06:44]Half. And it's supposed to go to homelessness and a bunch of other crappy climate stuff. Not even going to that. It's just basically a backstop for sources of revenue that have dried up because businesses are leaving.

[00:06:59]Commercial real estate is way, way down.

[00:07:02]Meanwhile, Bellevue is thriving. Bellevue's commercial real estate is going up.

[00:07:08]7%. Seattle's went down 48 since this tax has been enacted.

[00:07:15]At some point in time, these leader leadership in these cities has to has to look around and go It's like It's like that I get that with the Bidens on the gas tank, right? I get that. That's so fun. But they won't.

[00:07:30]They won't because it it's innate to them that they can't admit when they're wrong. And all you got to do is look at Portland, look at its tax base, look at its liabilities, look at its expenditures, and you go, "Ooh, mhm, wouldn't want to inherit that role."

[00:07:46]Handful of roles be impacted by the decision to close the office. Majority of Under Armour's Under Armour employees will be relocated to Baltimore.

[00:07:55]Under Armour plans to leave its old Portland office and move into a new one by the end of the year, Journak said, chief communications officer. Okay, so he's basically saying we still need to have an office in Portland cuz we're going to have some stuff there. We've had it there for long time, almost a decade. And we're going to cut that way down, a much smaller office, meaning, you know, is it a couple of thousand square feet?

[00:08:24]Probably.

[00:08:26]Place where they literally just have key operations still going. Everybody else, go into Baltimore. And And it's like that I was saying earlier, people from Seattle not wanting to move to Nashville because ooh, then we'd be faced with what it's like to live in a state that actually has responsible leadership that doesn't run a massive deficit and doesn't rob from Peter to pay Paul, like Seattle is doing with the jump-start tax right now, which pushed business out.

[00:08:59]And that's part of the reason they're having to do that. They don't have the tax revenue they once did because all of their funnels of tax revenue are going away.

[00:09:11]But hey, let's get that let's get that millionaire tax in place because we need the wealthy to pay their fair share.

[00:09:18]One of my neighbors said that. Like >> [laughter] >> you are brainwashed. You are not really thinking this through.

[00:09:29]You know what I mean? Well, don't the millionaires have the ability to up and go? Oh, they do. Have they already done that? Yes, they're doing that right now. Then who's going to be left to to pay all the bills? You, 80-year-old retired dude.

[00:09:45]Under Armour is making a strategic shift to strengthen key functions in Baltimore and expand our presence in New York by relocating some capabilities from the West Coast. All right, we got West Coast, we got Baltimore, we got New York. All right. This will help us move faster, collaborate more closely, and better align our teams around serving athletes and building the brand.

[00:10:11]What made you come to Portland in the first place?

[00:10:14]Oh, because Portland was a cool place to do business, and it was so easy to recruit people. Hey, you want to go to Portland? I do.

[00:10:22]I do. This is back before Portland absolutely took the dive. And I I basically indicate that as the real turning point was the pandemic.

[00:10:34]Was the pandemic. We got to see what happens when you let a big city in North America get run by a bunch of toddlers who have ideology, but inability to see what happens when that ideology gets put in place. Hey, let's welcome Antifa. This should be good.

[00:10:58]And they bash out every window.

[00:11:00]The Apple Store has to continually board up all of its windows in downtown Portland because they continually get broken into. Same thing in downtown Seattle. And then all of a sudden there's no businesses there, and hey, where'd everybody go? What's happening?

[00:11:14]What's going on?

[00:11:16]Now, businesses leave. They have options.

[00:11:19]Under Armour has options.

[00:11:22]Under Armour isn't a company that I've bought a lot of stuff from over the years.

[00:11:27]When my kids were both playing baseball, here in in Washington state, spring baseball is it might as well just be winter baseball cuz it's we had games that got snowed snowed out, right? It's not raining, but it's snowing. Do you think we call it?

[00:11:44]Well, can you see first base? You know what I mean? White on white.

[00:11:49]No, games got called cuz it was freaking cold. And so my kids would always have Under Armour as the base layer. And it's good stuff. I used to wear some Under Armour when I was doing a lot of mountain climbing. Their polypro material is it's good.

[00:12:03]It's but it's I don't consume any more from them. So, how how it's going to help them move faster, collaborate more closely. I love corporate speak. It's just a bunch of jargon.

[00:12:15]And better align our teams around serving athletes and building the brand.

[00:12:21]And you're left with Okay, that sounds that sounds absolutely stunning. That sounds epic. I mean, why wouldn't we want to do that?

[00:12:31]But the whole thing is the whole underlying thing is we got to get out of Portland. This this isn't going well.

[00:12:38]This isn't this isn't where we where we need to be. And if you're isolated, cuz West Coast Best Coast, aside from California, we are isolated, right?

[00:12:47]We're isolated. It's too far upper left USA.

[00:12:51]And if you're trying to deal with a bunch of athletes across the country, I'm not sure that Baltimore is exactly where you want to, you know, land, but can't be any worse than Portland or Seattle, right? From a geographic standpoint. It's got It's got to be a little bit better cuz you got access to the all that East Coast stuff.

[00:13:09]So, I thought this one was interesting.

[00:13:11]We'll hear more on this.

[00:13:13]The the press release on this was was was pretty minimal.

[00:13:19]Kind of just yeah, we're we're we're closing this bad boy down and we're going to Baltimore.

[00:13:25]And you're left with oh okay, let's see Baltimore or Portland. All right, okay.

[00:13:33]It's what they're doing. It's what they're doing. It's the choice they made. So Portland's leadership, how's that going to look? Hey, they they went to Baltimore over Portland, Oregon.

[00:13:45]What do you think about that, Mr. Mayor?

[00:13:48]The mayor's going to go, well, all businesses make decisions and I know it's a tough call and we talked to them and had zero impact or zero effect on their business making decision, but now that they're gone, it'll open up space for a new company to move in, you know, some nonsense like that.

[00:14:06]Is that going to happen?

[00:14:08]Doesn't seem to be happening.

[00:14:11]If it does, I'll podcast it for you right here on News for Reasonable People.

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