Esports and Gaming Merch: Jerseys, Hoodies and Team Kit
By The Velocity Wear Team
Esports kit divides into sublimated jerseys for competing rosters and printed or embroidered hoodies and tees for players and fans. Velocity Wear produces both from a 20-piece minimum with mixed sizes, using sublimation for all-over jersey designs and screen printing, DTF or embroidery for casual merch, with tracked delivery across the UK, USA and Europe.
Jerseys Are a Sublimation Job
Competitive jerseys almost always want sublimation, and for a specific reason: it puts the design into the polyester rather than onto it. That means edge-to-edge colour, sponsor panels running across seams, and no printed layer that sits on the surface, cracks or feels heavy. It also means the design has to be built for it — sublimation works on polyester and works best on lighter base fabrics, so a dark, heavily saturated design behaves differently to a light one.
Designing for Camera and for Close Inspection
Esports audiences see kit two ways: compressed on a stream, and in detail in photographs. Both matter.
- Keep the primary mark legible at small scale. A logo that dissolves into noise at streaming bitrates does no work at all.
- Contrast beats detail on camera. Intricate line work reads as mush; bold shapes survive compression.
- Sponsor placement should be agreed in writing before artwork, because moving a sponsor after approval means re-proofing everything.
- Player names and numbers need a consistent spec — font, size and position fixed once, applied across the roster.
Fan Merch Is a Different Product
Fans do not generally want a jersey; they want a hoodie they would wear anyway. That pushes towards heavier cotton-rich blanks around 350 GSM or above, restrained branding, and neutral colourways. A subtle embroidered logo on a good hoodie sells more reliably than a full-team sponsor layout reproduced on cotton. Screen printing suits bold graphics at volume; DTF handles detailed full-colour artwork on shorter runs without screen setup charges — useful for testing a design before scaling.
“"The jersey is for the roster. The hoodie is for everyone else, and it is where the actual revenue is."”
Minimums and Scaling
The 20-piece minimum with mixed sizes makes it practical to produce a roster's jerseys and a small first run of fan merch without committing to volume. Bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise, so once a design proves itself, a consolidated reorder brings the per-piece cost down substantially. The free instant price calculator lets you model that before committing.
Lead Times and Tournament Dates
Sublimation and complex jobs typically take around 15–20 working days from artwork approval, with screen printing and embroidery nearer 10–15, plus 2–5 working days tracked UK delivery and longer for USA and Europe. Tournament dates are immovable and sponsor artwork frequently arrives late, so lock artwork earlier than feels necessary.
Artwork Files
Supply vector artwork for logos and confirm exact colours rather than describing them. Sponsor assets are the usual bottleneck — collect them early and check each one at actual size. Preview the full layout in the free Design Studio before approving, particularly for jerseys where the design wraps across panels.