What's Happening
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Under Armour are ending their partnership after roughly a decade, with Johnson taking his Project Rock training brand with him. The split was first reported by WWD.
Johnson and his ex-wife and business partner, Dany Garcia, own the Project Rock brand and will look for a new manufacturer to produce the line going forward. Under Armour will continue to distribute Project Rock products through October before the two sides fully separate.
The relationship dates back to 2016, when Johnson first partnered with Under Armour, followed by Project Rock performance apparel in 2017 and the debut Project Rock 1 training shoe in 2018. The line grew to eight sneaker models across the collaboration. In its statement, Under Armour framed the exit as a mutual, natural end: "After an impressive 10-year run, Under Armour and Dwayne Johnson are bringing our partnership to a natural conclusion. As we sharpen our focus and strengthen our core business, we're creating a more unified expression in our train category."
Why It Matters
The key detail is ownership. Because Johnson and Garcia hold the Project Rock brand, this is not a partner walking away empty-handed, it is a partner leaving with one of Under Armour's most visible sub-brands intact and free to take it elsewhere. Project Rock has been a genuine bright spot in Under Armour's training category, and losing both the name and the celebrity behind it removes a proven traffic driver from the lineup.
Under Armour's framing, "sharpen our focus" and "strengthen our core business," is the language of a company retrenching. The brand has spent the past couple of years working through a turnaround under returned founder Kevin Plank, cutting complexity and trying to reestablish a premium position. Ending a marquee licensing deal fits that narrative, but it also means leaning on its own in-house training products to fill a gap a global superstar used to occupy.
The timing compounds the story. This is the second high-profile departure in under a year: Golden State's Stephen Curry left Under Armour in November 2025 and signed with Li-Ning in June, also retaining his own brand and logo. Two signature partners exiting in quick succession, both keeping their brands, is a difficult look for a company trying to convince the market it is regaining momentum.
Bigger Picture
The bigger question is what Project Rock does next. Johnson and Garcia now control a brand with real equity, an established product history, and one of the most recognizable faces on the planet attached to it. A new manufacturing partner, or an independent, self-operated model, could turn Project Rock from a licensed line inside Under Armour into a standalone business, following the athlete-owned-brand playbook that Curry, Michael Jordan, and others have proven can be enormously valuable.
For Under Armour, the departures underline the risk of building brand heat on borrowed star power. Signature partnerships drive attention and sales, but when the athlete or celebrity owns the underlying brand, the company is renting equity it can lose, and the partner walks away with the audience. Rebuilding its training category around its own identity rather than a famous name is the harder but more durable path, and it is clearly the one Under Armour is now choosing.
The broader athletic apparel market rewards exactly the kind of independence Johnson is stepping into. Celebrity and athlete brands increasingly want ownership and control rather than licensing checks, and the infrastructure to manufacture and distribute independently has never been more accessible. Whoever ends up making Project Rock gear, the split is a reminder that in 2026, the leverage in these deals sits with the person whose name is on the box.
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