I have a friend who is in the uniform business in the midwest -- a sideline so they do about 20 clubs total. The problem is in getting uniforms out of Asia and into the US. Covid. There is a Nike plant in South America and shipments from there are better, but the backlog is tremendously long. They are telling clubs that "Nike says . . . ", but they think it will be much longer in reality, and that numbered t shirts that can be converted into practice shirts is a needed first step just to make sure that the team has game day stuff come August/September. He thinks that October is very possible.
He is also charging more in anticipation of having to pay more. Two of my kids have worked for him over summers pressing and putting orders together. No one is working yet, and the college summer job kids who make up the bulk of this workforce will be back to school in 30 days. Right now they should be working full steam with two shifts. Nothing going on. Uniforms are not there yet.
Just as an aside -- Nike or Adidas or whoever -- ships in bulk. So they will have big boxes of each club's uniforms broken down into sizes. When your order is made -- someone gathers everything that you ordered into a basket. It is very important to get your size right in the order. The college kid putting it together is not authorized to change your order. So if you order mens small shorts and youth small shirts that is what you will get. Pay attention to what you order and do it right.
Once the order is put together (and it can be delayed if they do not have some item for it in stock), then they put on the numbers and other required patches. These are pressed on using guided pressing machines but a lot of it is hand placed. And, if they screw it up -- the jersey has to be pitched. That adds to to the overall cost as mistakes will happen.
It will be interesting to see when things actually get shipped. Their staffing is down, because kids got other jobs when they had no gear to get started with in June. There are college kids around after August where he is, but he will have to pay them well. I am sure he is not unique, and there will be substantial additional admin costs associated with dealing with part time folks instead of full time. Next year production will be more normal as the supply chain will be caught up But, I would not bet on prices falling.
TLDR -- talk to your coach about getting some practice tee shirts in the right collars for home/away games just in case. $40 in tee shirts from a local shop with numbers won't break the bank and you will have them on hand in mid-August if the regular supplier says sorry -- looks like it will be another 30 days.
Just spent $400 for DD that joined new club. It was actually less than the old club I think because old one had Nike licensed kits and new one does not. Do the clubs make any profits off the uniforms?
Anonymous wrote:Just ordered too... estimated date was 8/10. Uniforms were so expensive!
OP here—I spent over $600 for two kids—one had a major growth spurt this year and the other changed clubs. I still have one more kid to buy for but I think he won’t need his full kit until spring.
Now one of the jerseys I bought says it’s back ordered until the end of august.
I had to order new kits for both kids and put it off a couple of weeks because of some other large expenses that came up. I should have just ordered the jerseys and then waited to order the rest but oh well.
Estimated ship date is 8/9–if you’ve ordered personalized team items from them lately has stuff come when they said it would? It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had to order from them.