Custom Branded Shorts

Start with two families. Performance mesh: the Ultra Mesh range — soccer, volleyball, basketball, women's and youth cuts — at $16–20, made for clubs, schools and corporate sport. Sublimated polyester: the Custom Sublimated Active Shorts and AFL Club Shorts at $23–26, where the design is dyed into the fabric. Then the outlier: the American Apparel Unisex Pique Gym Shorts at $20.60 — cotton pique with a drawstring, closer to a merch piece than a kit piece.

Sublimation is the category's advantage. Because dye bonds into polyester rather than sitting on it, an entire panel becomes the design — club colours, patterns, sponsor logos, individual numbers — with no cracking or peeling over the garment's life. It needs white or light polyester bases, which the sublimated range is built for, and it suits runs from 10 (AFL and rugby shorts) to 50 (custom active shorts) with sizes mixed freely. Design the shorts against the jersey as one composition; a matched sublimated kit reads like a supplied uniform, not a collection of items.

On mesh, decoration is simpler: screen print for single- and two-colour logos and numbers, positioned on the leg where the open knit still holds a clean edge. Cotton pique takes screen print well and a small embroidery on the leg for a retail finish. Budgets sit in a tight $16–26 band, so the decision is really mesh-versus-sublimated-versus-cotton. Production typically two to three weeks; 48-hour dispatch on selected lines; freight quoted per job.