A South African clothing startup is taking on the global athleisure market, going from a university dorm room to partnerships with sports giants like the National Basketball Association and Manchester City Football Club in just seven years.
It all started when brothers Daniel and Stef Steinmann wanted to wear vintage-feel shirts to support their country's rugby team – the Springboks – at the World Cup in 2019. When he saw that none were available, he decided to create his own, giving birth to his business – Old School.
“At the time, we didn't understand intellectual property or how rights worked,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Steinman said in an interview. “We just put a Springbok in there, we launched the product and we sold it.”
The Springboks won the title and when the next tournament came in 2023, the old school was ready with R4 million in team-shirt sales in a single day.
“It was an absolutely crazy day,” he said. “It was almost as much as we did last year, and we did it in one day.”
Old School is carving a niche for itself in the $97 billion global sports-apparel market, according to Euromonitor. In South Africa – where the company sells its goods – the sports and athleisure segment grew 7% last year, outpacing economic growth of 1.1%.
In particular, throwback brands have enjoyed a resurgence as shoppers clamor for nostalgia. That trend prompted sports-merchandise retailer Fanatics to buy a majority stake in Mitchell & Ness, which makes vintage-style team jerseys, in a 2022 deal valuing the company at $250 million, Bloomberg reported at the time. Celebrity investors including basketball star LeBron James, rapper and record executive Jay-Z and actor Kevin Hart bought the rest.
Old School is trying to replicate that success in the South African market: based out of dorm rooms at Stellenbosch University just outside Cape Town, it now makes gear for major South African football clubs Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, the national Bafana Bafana team, as well as several NBA teams and Manchester City.
And for South African fans the list of brands partnering with Old Skool is growing: it recently inked a deal with Liverpool Football Club, while there are agreements with Spanish football giants Barcelona and Real Madrid – the world's most valuable club according to Forbes at $6.8 billion – coming soon.
In March alone, Old School began selling gear celebrating Southern Guards, a South African team in the LIV Golf League, and added gear for London club Tottenham Hotspur to its catalog.
The company – which employs more than 250 people across its head office, warehouse and retail operations – has more than 20 standalone stores, kiosks and pop-ups in key retail locations across South Africa, with the opening of its flagship shop in Stellenbosch in 2024.
On the eve of that opening, the business nearly shut down when the South African Rugby Union sued Old School for copyright infringement on its intellectual property.
“We realized we can't use someone's IP if you don't pay for it,” Steinman said. “That was a big turning point for us.”
Avoiding court, they reached a settlement that resulted in a partnership that endured and flourished.
Bronwyn Williams, strategic foresight consultant at Flux Trends, said companies like Old School are “capitalizing on national brands and using them to create their own individual values.” “They play into the margin by making their brand close enough to the reference brand to trigger value, but without paying for the license.”
He said, with brands of national interest like the Springboks, entrepreneurs like the Steinmans are not just getting registered trademarks for specific logos and colours, but making the most of the association by understanding the nuances of the law. In many cases, lawsuits emerge only after startups become profitable.
Williams said governments could consider placing these assets in a national fund that would enable a society to make a profit rather than effectively seizing money from national identity.
Sports brand deals with companies like Old Skool differ from the global kit-manufacturing rights that clubs have with sportswear giants like Nike and Puma.
For example, while Nike has the global rights to design and manufacture official Springboks, Liverpool and NBA kits, these retailers operate further up the value chain, focusing on the sales and distribution of these goods as well as selling now-licensed fanwear and some replica items made by startups.
“We felt we were entering a space where there was already a globally proven model of people who wanted to buy their most beloved brands,” Steinman said. “They don't just want to buy kit or athleisure wear – they want to wear it in a fashion piece. That's why we kept creating it.”
While brands like Nike, Adidas and Kappa “play the game on-field,” Old Skool needs to “have this very premium storytelling and quality authority around the brands we work with,” he said.
Extending this logic, it is working with 100 schools in South Africa, developing and creating athletic items for alumni and parents — “something they can rally behind and that creates loyalty to our brand and that ecosystem,” Steinman said.
He declined to say whether the company was making profits or losses, saying only that the money had been reinvested in the business. Steinman also wouldn't say where the clothes are manufactured.
The company is working to replicate its model in other jurisdictions: in late March, it announced a partnership with Schools Sports, a technology company that provides software platforms for the sports programs of over 1,000 educational institutions globally and in the UK, to launch a schools division in the UK.
“This is one of the more complex builds we've done and it's even been registered to operate in India,” Steinman said in a LinkedIn post.
As part of the rollout in the world's most populous country, Old School is launching a tribute series in honor of South African cricketer AB de Villiers, who played for the national Proteas team and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, a club-cricket competition with a business valuation of $18.5 billion last year, according to the IPL.
Old Skool's mission is to “unite people with great products”, Steinman said, working to bring merchandise associated with the world's best sports teams to South African fans.
“We really believe that sports can unite this country,” he said. “And we thought business was a great way to do that.”