How To Make Your Own Jerseys For Your Team In 7 Steps
You said yes to handling the team jerseys. Now there’s a group chat full of opinions, and the first game is closer than anyone wants to admit.
Here’s the short version. To make your own jersey for a team, pick the fabric first, because it decides how the design can go on: screen printing for a logo everyone shares, sublimation for all-over color on light polyester, heat transfers for names and numbers. Then lock in sizes early, budget by quantity, and wash them cool.
If this is your first time figuring out how to make custom jerseys, go in this order. Skip ahead, and you’ll likely pay for something twice.
Step 1: Start With the Fabric, Not the Logo
Fabric comes first because it decides everything else, from which printing methods work to how the jerseys feel in August. Most team jerseys are polyester, either mesh or a moisture-wicking knit. It’s light, it dries fast, and it holds its shape. Cotton’s cheaper, but it gets heavy once it’s soaked.
Think about the sport and the weather. A summer soccer league needs breathable mesh, no question. A Sunday morning softball team? They’ll be perfectly happy in 50/50 tees.
One catch: polyester also gives printers headaches, because its dyes can move when heated (more in Step 2). Once you’ve found a blank you like, write down its exact fiber content.
Step 2: Decide How the Design Gets On
This is the big decision. For one logo on every jersey, screen printing is usually the answer. Want color running edge to edge? That’s sublimation, and it only works on light polyester. Names and numbers tend to go on as heat transfers, and the old-school stitched look of baseball and hockey is tackle twill.
Here’s how the main options stack up:
Screen printing (also called silk screening): ink pushed through a mesh screen, one screen per color. Best for the same logo on every jersey, on cotton, blends, or polyester with low-cure ink. Watch for dye migration on dark polyester.
Dye sublimation: heat turns special dye into a gas that bonds with polyester fibers. Best for all-over color and gradients, with names and numbers built in. White or light polyester only.
Heat transfer vinyl (HTV): colored vinyl cut into letters and pressed on with heat. Best for small batches and DIY names and numbers. Edges can lift with hot washes.
Direct-to-film (DTF) transfers: full designs printed on film, then heat-pressed onto the shirt. Good for full-color art and small runs on cotton or polyester. Big prints feel a bit heavy.
Tackle twill: cut fabric lettering sewn onto heavier jerseys for the classic baseball and hockey look. Costs more and takes longer.
Screen printing on polyester has one trap, called dye migration: the heat used to cure the ink pulls the fabric’s own dye up into the print. That crisp white logo on a red jersey? It can turn pink, sometimes not until the next day. The fix is in the ink. Standard plastisol, the ink most shops use, cures at around 320°F. Low-cure inks set at roughly 270-300°F, low enough to help stop polyester dyes from reactivating, per Impressions magazine’s 2026 guide to low-cure inks.
So don’t just accept whatever ink comes standard. Ask. Tee Vision Printing, which does screen printing in Philadelphia, runs both plastisol and water-based inks (water-based soaks into the fibers, so it feels softer). Any printer quoting polyester jerseys should be able to tell you which ink they’ll use and why.
Sublimation has its own hard rules. The Parsons Making Center’s 2024 dye-sublimation guide puts the minimum at about 60% polyester, on light-colored fabric. The dye is see-through and there’s no white ink, so black or navy jerseys won’t work.
Step 3: Handle Names and Numbers Separately
Every jersey gets a different name and number, so they’re almost always a separate job. The team design usually gets screen printed or sublimated across the whole order, then each player’s name and number goes on as heat transfers, DTF transfers, number screens, or sewn twill.
Before anyone opens a design app, check the league rulebook. A lot of leagues, and school sports bodies especially, have rules about number size, placement, and color contrast, and an official can make a kid change jerseys. Numbers on the back only, or front and back? Names or no names? Names cost more, and every one is another chance for a typo.
Make one roster sheet: each player’s name spelled exactly the way it should print, plus their number and size. Get every family to sign off on it. That single sheet heads off most reprints.
Step 4: Get the Artwork Printer-Ready
Printers want vector artwork, meaning an AI, EPS, SVG, or vector PDF file, because vectors stay sharp at any size. And since a screen printer burns one screen per color, knowing your exact colors (and keeping the count low) keeps setup simple and the price down.
Designing your own jersey in a free online tool? Export the logo as a vector file. Not a screenshot. That blurry JPG grabbed off the team website will probably bounce back for redrawing, costing you days.
Keep the jersey design simple enough to read from the bleachers. Two or three solid colors beat fancy gradients. If the art truly needs a gradient or photo, look at sublimation on light polyester, or DTF.
Step 5: Budget by Quantity, Not Per Jersey
Three things drive the cost: how many jerseys you order, how many colors are in the design, and the decoration method. Screen printing needs one screen per color, a one-time setup charge spread across the whole order, so each jersey gets cheaper as the order grows. Transfers flip that: less setup, more per piece.
These numbers are purely illustrative, not a quote. Say a shop charges $20 per screen, $5 per jersey to print a two-color front logo, $14 for each blank, and $4 per name-and-number transfer.
15 jerseys: the two screens ($40) add about $2.67 a jersey, roughly $25.67 each.
30 jerseys: the same $40 drops to about $1.33 a jersey, roughly $24.33 each.
A third ink color means another screen and usually a higher print price, which is the real reason simple designs save money. Ask about minimums before you commit to a method. Tee Vision Printing, for example, starts screen printing orders at 12 pieces, so a team of eight would probably be better off with transfers.
Step 6: Collect Sizes and Set a Real Deadline
The easy way to order custom team jerseys is to get every size, name, and number onto one sheet by one date. Use the size chart for the exact blank you’re buying, since brands size differently. Then set the deadline by counting backward from the first game.
Youth and adult sizes sometimes come in different blank styles, so make sure both exist in your color. Order a spare or two. Someone always signs up late.
Get the production and delivery dates in writing, then pad them by a week. The same one-sheet trick works for any group order, from a family reunion to a backyard cornhole tournament.
Step 7: Wash Them So the Prints Survive the Season
Jerseys last longest washed inside out in cold water, then hung up or tumbled on low. Heat is what wrecks jersey decoration. It softens transfers, can crack ink, and shrinks cotton. Polyester itself barely shrinks in a normal wash, but a hot dryer will still damage whatever’s printed on it.
Skip fabric softener on performance polyester; it can coat the fibers and make them worse at wicking sweat. Don’t iron over a print or transfer, ever. And tuck a short care note into each family’s bag.
When the season wraps, some teams put together a memory book: team photo, roster, final scores. Your vector logo from Step 4 doubles as the cover art, and a book cover design service can make it a proper keepsake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you make your own jersey at home?
For a small batch, sure. A home vinyl cutter and a heat press will handle HTV names and numbers on a few jerseys. Past a handful, a print shop is faster and more consistent, especially for the logo.
What font is used on jerseys?
Mostly block or athletic-style fonts, because they’re easy to read from a distance. Go bold and simple. Thin script numbers look great on a laptop and terrible from the stands. Check your league’s font and size rules first.
Can cotton T-shirts work instead of real jerseys?
Yep. Plenty of rec leagues play in cotton or 50/50 tees. Cotton takes screen printing easily and doesn’t have the dye migration problem. The downside is it soaks up sweat and gets heavy, so it’s better for casual games than a July doubleheader.
What is a sublimated jersey?
A sublimated jersey has the design dyed right into the polyester fibers with heat. There’s no layer sitting on top, so nothing to crack or peel. The catch: sublimation only works on light polyester. Dark jerseys need a different method.
The First Decision to Make
Before anyone starts arguing about fonts or colors, pick the blank jersey and check its exact fiber content. That one choice tells you which methods are on the table, what to ask the printer, and roughly what you’ll pay.