Lead Times Sports Clubs Should Plan For
By The Velocity Wear Team
Production takes 10-15 working days from artwork approval, with transit added after that. For a season opener, a club should have artwork approved roughly four weeks before the date. In practice the committee stage runs longer than the factory stage, so clubs that start six to eight weeks out are the ones that get kit on time.
How early does a club need to order for a season?
Work from the first fixture backwards. Transit first, then fifteen working days for the build, then the proofing exchange, then whatever the committee needs to agree sizes, sponsors and the numbering list. That last block is the one nobody budgets for and it is routinely the longest.
Clubs with an annual rhythm solve this by fixing the order date in the constitution of the season rather than deciding it fresh each year. The sports clubs page sets out what we produce for squads and when the clock starts.
What slows a club order down most often?
Sponsors and sizes, in that order. A sponsor logo that arrives as a photograph of a sign, or a sponsor who has not confirmed by the time the order is due, stops everything. Sizes collected by asking a group chat and hoping produce a list that is still incomplete a fortnight later.
- 1Request sponsor artwork as a vector file the moment the deal is agreed.
- 2Set a hard deadline for size returns and order without the stragglers.
- 3Give one person authority to approve the proof without a committee vote.
- 4Lock the numbering list before artwork goes for approval.
None of those are production issues and all of them add weeks. The general timeline mechanics are covered in apparel production lead times explained.
Can a mid-season top-up arrive in time?
Only if it is planned as an order, not a request. A top-up is still fifty pieces of the design and still takes 10-15 working days, so a player joining in November cannot be covered by a fresh run before Christmas in any realistic sense. Spare stock from the original run is the only mechanism that works at that scale.
That is the strongest argument for ordering above the squad size at the start of the season. It also lands the club in a better discount band, since the rate falls by as much as 35% from the 50-piece price as quantity rises. The minimum mechanics are in minimum orders explained for sports clubs.
Does a bigger club order take longer?
Not meaningfully. The 10-15 working day window covers a run of fifty and a run of several hundred alike, because the time is dominated by setup and finishing rather than piece count. A club combining several teams into one order waits the same period and pays less per piece. The full tier structure is on the wholesale overview.
What does a season planning calendar look like?
Three fixed points and everything else follows. The first is the date sponsors must have confirmed and supplied artwork. The second is the size return deadline. The third is the order date, which is the one the supplier cares about and the only one most clubs write down. Adding the first two to the club calendar changes the outcome more than anything else.
Set those dates against the fixture list at the point the season ends, not the point the next one starts. A committee deciding in July what it needs for August has already lost the room to correct a proof, and a correction is the most common reason a club order slips. Deciding in May costs nothing and removes the pressure entirely. Write the three dates into the minutes so they survive a change of officers, and review them once a year rather than rebuilding the plan each season.
