by Matt DeLaere, Marketing
The biggest sporting event in the world starts today in Brazil where the top 32 teams in international soccer are gathered to decide which is best. Soccer (or football, or fútbol) will be on most everyone’s lips (one match in 2010 drew over 700 million TV viewers worldwide) as fans around the planet cheer on their home nation or adopt teams.
Over the next month, we’ll have a series of blogs to celebrate “the beautiful game” and ways you can make it even more beautiful. Today we kick off the series with a look at popular number styles and materials for soccer jerseys.
Exact numbers are difficult to chase down, but according to a 2006 survey by FIFA™ (an abbreviation of the Spanish form of International Federation of Association Football), over 265 million people worldwide played the sport, with over 24 million in the United States and almost 3 million in Canada. As far as organized teams, there were over 4 million registered soccer players on 9000 clubs in the United States, and nearly one million players on 10,000 registered clubs in Canada. That’s a lot of uniforms.
Between the US and Canada, Stahls’ customers decorate plenty of soccer jerseys using one of the simplest methods available – Pre-Cut Numbers applied with a heat press.
According to Paul, one of our uniform experts in customer service, Team US, Shadow, and Pro Block are the mainstays when it comes to Pre-Cut Number fonts. On the Pre-Spaced Number side of things, Team US Gap Outline, Swiss Shadow, World Cup, Soccer, and Team US Pinstripe are popular styles.
The #1 choice for athletic applications, Thermo-FILM®, is as expected, the most popular material for use on soccer uniforms, with Premium Plus™ and Super Film™ being popular choices for uniforms that stretch or require a lighter, softer material.
Keep these style and material options in mind the next time a customer asks you to decorate soccer uniforms. And for more helpful hints on decorating for soccer, check out the tips and video on our Soccer Uniform Lettering and Numbering page.