Under Armour has found itself "caught up in a social media uproar over its deep involvement with hunting when it dropped its sponsorship of hunter Sarah Bowmar after she posted a video showing her husband spearing a bear in Canada," according to Mirabella & Barker of the Baltimore SUN. Images of the baiting and apparent suffering of the bear "angered thousands of people who spoke out in petitions and on social media," prompting UA to terminate its partnership with Bowmar. That was followed by an "intense reaction from hunters, who criticized the brand for failing to back what was a legal hunt that reflected how humans have hunted for millennia." With its celebrity athletes, UA has "built a reputation as an urban, aspirational brand for the young, athletic and health-minded." Hunting has been an "important, if lesser known, category for the brand for more than a decade." UA "expanded into hunting around the time it went public" in '06. Indiana-based antler hunting and apparel company Shed Heads Owner Craig Bell said that the brand "became 'huge' in the hunting community, signing celebrity hunters such as Cameron Hanes, Tiffany Lakosky, and Jim and Eva Shockey." He added that UA "occasionally sent" him discount cards. However, Bell said, "The real true-blue hard-core hunters like myself, they wouldn't be caught dead in a picture with that stuff on." He added UA "just stuck the biggest knife in the back of every hunter possible" (Baltimore SUN, 9/3).
