The Breakup is Getting Ugly: Under Armour Takes Curry Brand’s Instagram Followers

For the last few months, the sneaker world has all been following along closely as Steph Curry enjoys sneaker free agency after his divorce from Under Armour, the brand that signed him to a “lifetime” deal in 2023. Every night, sneaker Twitter and the blogosphere race to see all three pairs of sneakers he laces up on game day: one for the walk into the arena, another during warmups and shootaround, and the pair he ultimately laces up for the game. Riveting stuff.

For Curry, it has felt more like a honeymoon than a breakup, frankly. Steph seems overjoyed that he gets to finally wear some heat, taking this opportunity to ball out in both iconic retros and state-of-the-art silhouettes from every brand in the game. As for Under Armour? They’re acting like the bitter ex taking the breakup way worse. No glow-up in sight for the Baltimore-based brand. And what does that person do when their former significant other is shining all over social media? They get petty.

Even though Under Armour told Sole Retriever directly back in December that “as part of the separation agreement, Steph Curry will own the logo, trademark and brand,” it seems like they’re going back on that promise now. Guess Pete Davidson didn’t give those new skate shoes the bump they expected.

We noticed recently that Curry Brand had just 200-something followers on Instagram, which was just wrong. Steph’s eponymous brand had roughly half a million followers before their breakup at the end of last year. So, we looked into it. Turns out, the Under Armour Basketball division’s Instagram account was losing, on average, a little more than 3,400 followers every month throughout all of 2025–until December. In the final month of last year, the @UAbasketball account gained 497,341 followers. Wow, great job team, guess people just all of a sudden fell in love with the brand at a rate never seen before in the history of humans.

Seriously, though, we all know an Under Armour-affiliated account that was losing almost 3,500 followers every month consistently couldn’t have possibly added nearly 500,000 new followers without buying them on the dark web or taking them from one of their other accounts. Spoiler alert, it was the latter. The 497,341 followers Under Armour Basketball added was the exact number @CurryBrand lost, meaning Under Armour had Instagram migrate Curry’s followers to their UA Basketball account, which the social media platform will do on occasion. All that was left on Curry Brand’s page after the mass exodus was 210 followers, which we can only assume are made up of Curry’s family and friends, plus roughly 85 Kevin Durant burner accounts.

We reached out to Under Armour for comment but they’re not exactly taking our calls or e-mails at this time, as they feel we (as in all of us collectively in the world) took Steph’s side in the breakup.

Multiple sources familiar with the situation have told us this shift occurred internally, sharing details regarding the sequence of events leading to the change. We have also been told that specific requirements were communicated to Stephen Curry in order to retain ownership and control of these Curry Brand assets (including followers), and that his failure to meet those requirements resulted in the transfer of associated digital assets.

Like any petty move a scorned lover makes in a breakup, it appears it was a decision made emotionally and without much long-term vision. Curry will be fine, as any of those followers who aren’t bots will eventually realize they’re following the wrong account and find their way back to Steph. At the rate Under Armour Basketball fumbles its followers, it would take 145 months for them to lose all 497,341 followers they just took from @CurryBrand. But we’re guessing the rate will increase drastically once people hear about this, or once Steph signs with a real player in the basketball sneaker space.

Drew London

Drew oversees content at Sole Retriever and hates writing in the 3rd person soooo I'm going to stop. I've written for countless blogs and magazines, from Complex to XXL and everywhere in between. Spent a long time in LA, running content and working on branded collabs at The Hundreds. Now, I'm back home on the East Coast freezing my ass off. Email me at drew@soleretriever.com with scoops, story ideas, and size 13 heat.