Formerly a publicly traded company, Russell Brands was acquired by Fruit of the Loom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, in 2006.

With the acquisition of two subsidiaries, Quality Mills in North Carolina and Cloathbond Ltd. in Scotland, in 1988 and 1989 respectively, the company had become a global contender in the sportswear industry.

The contract also stipulated that the company held the exclusive right to manufacture and market replicas of major league uniforms, T-shirts and shorts.

The decline was caused by intensifying competition as industry-wide over-capacity and price-cutting by rivals forced Russell to lower its own prices, all of which hurt the company's results.

Over a three-year period, the company planned to eliminate about 4,000 jobs, or 23 percent of its workforce; close about 25 of its 90 plants, distribution centers and other facilities; and move most of the final assembly of garments abroad, to Mexico, Honduras and elsewhere in the Caribbean basin.

[6] Restructuring charges led Russell to post a net loss for fiscal year 1998 of $10.4 million on revenues of $1.18 billion.

During Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, over 40 containers of Russell products were lost or destroyed and nearly 70 percent of the ports it used for shipping were closed.

The report found that Russell illegally fired nearly 2,000 in two of its factories, in retaliation for employees protesting against working conditions and forming a union.

[18][19][20][21] On May 13, 2009, sixty-five members of Congress wrote to Russell CEO John Holland to express their concern over the labor violations.

[23] At first, Russell said it was being unfairly targeted by the garment workers' union and student activists, and that the plant closure was due to the general downturn in the world economy.

In later statements, the company admitted wrongdoing, although the violations are yet to be resolved.,[29] Throughout its history, Russell Corporation was involved in the manufacturing and selling of equipment for many professional, collegiate and high school sports teams.