The reason your team still doesn't have shirts is that somebody has to put about $190 on a card and then get it back from five other adults. That is the whole obstacle. It has nothing to do with design or sizes or anybody's opinion about the color.
There is a third pocket in the building and most captains never consider it. The room you shoot in every week already spends money on advertising, already sponsors things, and has an owner who has been asked for worse.
The room already backs you, it just isn't in writing
Your hall holds at least two tables every Tuesday for five hours, they eat the loss on the ones that aren't earning during league play, and they know all six of your names. Some of that is worth money to them and some of it is habit.
Sponsorship is that same relationship with a number attached. Owners understand the arrangement immediately, because half the softball and dart teams in town are already wearing somebody's name.
A pool hall or a bar, the ask works the same way because a pool hall is just a bar that owns its tables. Halls never make enough money on pool tables to cover the space they take up. League night fills the room on a night that would otherwise be dead.
What the owner is actually buying
Six shirts with the room's name across the back go into every other hall in the division. They get worn to work, to the grocery store, and to whatever tournament your best player drags the team to in the spring. The people looking at them are the exact people who shoot pool within twenty miles.
That is local advertising at a scale that fits a hall. Don't inflate it into a marketing campaign. An owner who has bought a radio spot knows what a radio spot did for them, and six shirts on six regulars compares better than you would think.
The three sizes of ask
Bring one number and two fallbacks. Ask for the top one first.
- The whole run: about $190 covers six tees and the one-time design fee. That is the number that gets the shirts made this month.
- Half: they put in around a hundred, the team covers the rest, and everybody pays about sixteen dollars.
- The design fee only: $50. Some owners will say yes to fifty who would have said no to two hundred, and it takes that line item off your team's plate.
Any of the three helps get shirts on your team. The worst case is they say no to all three and the team pays all of it, which is where you already are.
Ask the owner, on a slow night, with a date on it
Bartenders can't approve this and shouldn't have to relay it. Find out which night the owner is actually in the building and go then, early, before the tables fill.
Have it on one piece of paper. The team name, the number of shirts, what goes on the back, the total, and the date you need an answer by. A captain who walks in with a total and a deadline gets an answer. A captain who asks whether they'd ever consider maybe sponsoring something gets a yeah, come talk to me sometime.
What goes on the shirt for them
Their logo goes on the back, big enough to read from the next table. The owner is buying advertising, so give them the real thing: their actual logo file, the one a designer or their sign painter made, in the best quality they have. A vector version if somebody can dig one up. Most rooms have something, even if it lives on a business card or a window decal.
Then the part a stranger can act on: the address, a phone number, a website, or a QR code that opens their page. A shirt back that reads CORNER POCKET LOUNGE and stops there just names a room the reader already drinks in. The logo with a way to reach the place is what the owner is paying for.
The back print is included, so the number you quote the owner is the number that shows up.
Front stays yours. The team name, the graphic, whatever your team decided on. The sponsor is on the back where it belongs and everybody is happy with the trade.
What you owe them, and what you don't
You owe them the shirts getting worn, which was going to happen anyway. Take one photo of the team in them at the room and give it to whoever runs their social media. That photo is worth more to the owner than the shirts are, because it is content they didn't have to make.
You don't owe them a guarantee that anybody will walk in because of it. Don't promise foot traffic you can't produce. Owners have heard that pitch from every rep who ever came through the door and they have stopped believing it.
If they say no
Ask what would make it a yes. Sometimes the answer is next quarter, sometimes it's a smaller number, and sometimes it's that the last team they sponsored never came back after the session ended.
If they pass entirely, ask whether they'd cover the design fee instead, or put fifty on the tab the night the shirts arrive. And if all of it is a no, the team pays $32 a head and you order anyway. You are exactly where you started, minus five minutes.
Ask before you collect anybody's money
Sequence matters. Ask the room first, then take the sizes, then collect what's left over. A captain who collects thirty-two dollars from everybody and then lands a sponsor is handing money back to five people, and handing money back is somehow harder than collecting it.
Get the answer, then tell the team the real number. Sometimes that number is zero, and that is the easiest league night text you will ever send.
The rest of the ordering, from picking the name to sizing and reorders, is in the captain's guide to team shirts.