The hottest NFL rookie endorser, Robert Griffin III, has scored yet another sponsorship deal.
On Thursday, athletic protective gear company Evoshield told CNBC it had signed the No. 2 overall draft pick, who had carved the niche market out of his adidas deal so that he could sign with the brand.
Justin Niefer, Evoshield’s director of product development, said that RGIII was wearing Evoshield since his freshman at Baylor, thanks to a relationship the company had made with the football team’s equipment managers and trainers.
With more people than ever before paying attention to preventative protection on the field, companies in the sports protective gear space have seen sales skyrocket. Niefer says that Evoshield’s revenues have doubled every nine months for the last couple years.
“In the past, no one wanted to wear protective gear until after they got hurt,†Niefer said. “But that has changed. “Schools, teams and now players themselves are finally realizing that their body is their biggest investment. Guys like RGIII have worn our stuff not after he got hurt, but to protect himself from getting hurt.â€
The company liked the speedy RGIII to be its first football endorser to help them shed the stigma that protective gear has to be bulky.
Beginning today, Evoshield is selling three new products for football players on its Web site: a girdle, a rib shirt and a protective arm sleeve. The girdle and the shirt feature Evoshield’s proprietary gel to shell technology, where athletes take the gel out of the package and shape it to their body. Within seconds, it permanently hardens.
Those pieces are wore by being placed into holes in compression material. Evoshield says its compression material now features a new nano cell technology that enables the material to be lighter than any protective foam on the market.
