Custom
Sports Pins
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What the team carries
Before the first faceoff, a 12U hockey team packing for a tournament out of town wants the association colors on every jacket. Little Leagues and girls’ softball leagues spend the spring with the kids on a shared diamond, carrying the league colors from opening day to the last inning. On one mat all winter, a wrestling program puts sports team pins on the athletes who make the lineup. T-shirts get outgrown and stickers peel, while sports pins stay small enough to collect by the dozen. Players can trade them, and nobody trades shirts.
Most sports pins put the team’s logo or character large in the center, with the team name and the year around the edge. An event or an age group can join that lettering, and many designs add the players’ numbers. The metal edge can follow a ball or the team crest, so a player across the gym can tell the sport at a glance. We usually make sports pins in soft enamel, where color fills the areas between raised metal lines. The fill gives the pin a textured feel and holds up through a tournament’s worth of trading.
Trading between games
Pin trading is a tradition at youth tournaments, best known in baseball and softball and common in hockey too. Players head out between games with their trading pins on a towel or a hat and swap one of theirs for one from each team they meet. The pins that come home tell the story of the trip. A baseball or softball family can go to baseball trading pins or softball trading pins, the pages written for their sport.
Add-ons are the cool part of a trading pin, the detail that makes other players stop and trade for it.
- Spinner: Turns in place so kids can spin it while they look.
- Slider: Rides a track so a player can move it back and forth.
- Dangler: Holds a hanging charm that swings as the player walks.
- Bobble: Wobbles on a spring when someone taps it.
- Blinker: Flashes a small LED so the pin shows up between games.
Glitter and glow-in-the-dark color change the fill, so the pin looks different even when it sits still.
Sports trading pins run from one and a half to three inches, and sizing up in that range is the biggest upgrade a team can choose. The bigger pin is the one other players ask for.
Past the tournament weekend
For the families in the stands, a football booster club orders team pins, and an all-sports booster club orders them for a high school that runs several programs. At shows and at the rink, skating clubs wear a pin, and a swim team keeps one on the bag that lives at the pool. Wrestling coaches' associations order a pin their members wear when they gather, and a golf association marks a member's years with the association on the metal. If a club wants all metal and no color, it can order die struck pins, which give a classic look.
Once the artwork is approved, production takes 3½-4 weeks, and the pins spend about 2 business days in transit after that, with shipping free to US addresses. When the date is already close, USA rush trading pins are printed in full color at our own shop in the United States and ship much sooner.
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Pins for
the road
Before a 12U team leaves for a weekend tournament several towns away, each player wears a pin on a lanyard to trade. Once the games pause, that pin comes off onto a towel in the lobby and starts the swaps with the other associations.
Homecoming
in the stands
Families who spend the season in the stands are the people a high school booster club can reach at the homecoming gate with a pin in the school colors. Jacket by jacket, those pins show who belongs to the program, and a few held back can go to seniors at the last home game.
Years with
the club
A club can mark a member’s tenth year on a pin handed out at the annual meeting. The large numeral stays easy to read when the member wears it to the next league day.
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We've got answers
Team parents and league organizers tend to ask about lead times and roster counts before they place a season order.
Custom sports pins are a team’s own piece of metal, worn to show the wearer is with that team. A kid will call one proof they were on the roster that season. A parent or a coach keeps one in a drawer from those early mornings.
We make sports pins for baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, rugby, track, swim, wrestling, football, cheer, gymnastics, and skating. Golf associations order them too, and so do college athletic departments and sports retailers.
Soft enamel works best for a sports team that wants color, with the fill sitting between raised metal lines so it stays put when pins change hands all weekend. If the team wants all metal and no color, die struck pins are the style to order.
A league can order pins for every team it fields. Choosing one design means every team in the league wears it, so a player from any roster still shows the league on a jacket or a bag.
The minimum order for custom sports pins is 100 pins. A league or club can pool one order so several teams share that count and every player still gets a pin.
Custom sports pins take 3½-4 weeks after the artwork is approved, plus about 2 business days in transit, and shipping is free to US addresses. A tight date calls for USA rush trading pins, which are printed in full color at our own shop in the United States and ship much sooner.