Custom Rugby Shirts and Club Kit: A Guide for Clubs
By The Velocity Wear Team
Custom rugby shirts are typically sublimated on polyester for match kit, with embroidered polos and printed training tops making up the rest of a club's range. Velocity Wear produces club kit from a 20-piece minimum with mixed sizes, around 15–20 working days from artwork approval for sublimation, plus 2–5 working days tracked UK delivery.
Rugby Kit Is a Durability Problem
No other team garment takes the same punishment. Match shirts are pulled, gripped, dragged through mud and washed hot after every fixture. That rules out decoration that sits on the fabric surface: a printed number or sponsor logo on a rugby shirt will not last a season. Sublimation puts the design into the polyester itself, which is why it dominates match kit — there is physically nothing on the surface to lift.
Building a Club Range
Most clubs need four things, and they have different requirements.
- Match shirts: sublimated polyester, numbered, with sponsor placement agreed in advance and fixed before artwork approval.
- Training tops: printed or sublimated, ordered in greater quantity because they are worn more often than match kit.
- Coaching and touchline kit: embroidered softshells or fleeces, which need to handle standing on a wet touchline rather than playing.
- Club polos and leisurewear: embroidered, sold to members and supporters, and often the part of the range that funds the rest.
Numbering and Sponsors
Numbering needs a fixed specification — font, size and position agreed once and applied consistently across the squad. Sponsor logos are the usual source of delay: they arrive late, often as low-resolution files, and any change after approval means re-proofing the whole set. Collect every sponsor asset before starting artwork, confirm placement in writing with the sponsors, and check each logo at actual size.
“"The sponsor who confirms their logo in July is the reason the kit arrives before the season starts."”
Sizing for a Squad
Rugby squads have an unusually wide size range, and match shirts are often cut closer than training tops. Collect sizes properly rather than estimating, and order a buffer — squads change, players join, and a shirt lost mid-season is a problem if there is no spare. Mixed sizes are allowed within the 20-piece minimum, so the full spread goes into one run.
Cost and Timing
Bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise, so ordering match kit, training tops and leisurewear together lands better on the discount curve than three separate orders. Sublimation sits at the longer end of production at around 15–20 working days from approval, so work backwards from the season start and allow for sponsor artwork arriving late. Preview the full layout in the free Design Studio and model quantities in the instant price calculator before committing.