The front of the shirt gets three weeks of debate in the group chat. The back gets decided by whoever is holding the phone when the order goes in, usually with two minutes of patience left.
That order is backwards, and the pricing is the reason. One print costs the same whether it lands on the front or the back. The back is one of two places your design can go, at the same number either way, and plenty of teams should be putting it there.
One print, either side, same price
A single print location is one price wherever you put it. Front, back, the number does not move.
Printing both sides is where the cost changes. A second location is a second design in the design service and more per shirt at the printer, so it is a real decision rather than a checkbox. Ask for the total on both before you tell the team a number.
Which means the question in the title comes second. First you decide whether the team's design lives on the back at all.
What the room sees, and what the camera sees
You spend most of a match with your back to the room. Shooting, or standing at the rail waiting on the other guy. Every person at the next two tables spends the night reading your back, and nobody sees your chest until you sit down.
The team photo runs the other direction. Everybody lines up facing the camera at the banquet, or against the wall by the door, or for whatever the hall puts on its Facebook page. A back-only shirt puts all six of you in matching blank shirts in every one of those pictures.
That is the trade, and it does not resolve cleanly:
- Design on the front: in every photo the team ever takes, hidden for most of every match.
- Design on the back: read all night by everyone in the room, absent from the pictures.
The common middle is a small name or logo on the left chest and the full design across the back. That covers both directions and it is still two print locations, priced accordingly.
When the room is paying
The back belongs to the sponsor. That is the deal, and it is the reason most sponsored teams end up with two prints: their name across the shoulders, your graphic on the chest.
Bring that up while you are still negotiating. A room owner who is buying six shirts to get their name walking into every hall in the division can usually be talked into the version that also has your team on the front. Settle it before the proof, not after.
If the back is yours to decide
Here are the options:
- Nothing. Free, fast, and the shirt still works. A strong front graphic carries a shirt on its own.
- The team design itself, big, with a blank front or a small chest hit.
- Last names. Reads as organized, reads slightly like a bowling league, and gets you called by your surname for a season.
- Nicknames. The pool answer, and the one your team will enjoy the most.
Why nicknames are the pool answer
Half your roster already has one, and none of them chose it. Somebody has been Doc since 2014 because of a shot he made once. Somebody is The Mechanic. Somebody is Big Country and nobody under forty knows why.
Those names exist whether or not you print them, and a shirt that uses them tells anybody reading it that the team has been together long enough to have a history. That is the thing a matching set of shirts is supposed to say in the first place.
They are also short, which is the practical part. Doc prints at a size you can read across two tables. A hyphenated surname does not.
Ask each player what they want on theirs. Do not assign nicknames from the captain's chair, and do not print the one somebody has been trying to shake for two years. You will know which one that is.
What a personalized back costs you later
This part only applies if every back is different. A sponsor line or the team design on all six shirts keeps them interchangeable.
- A new player in week nine needs their own shirt with their own back. Straightforward, since there is no minimum and no setup charge on one shirt, but it is a new order rather than a spare off the shelf.
- You cannot keep a spare large in the trunk for whoever forgets theirs.
- Somebody who leaves the team takes their shirt with them, which is fine, and it is also a shirt that only fits one roster spot.
None of that is a reason to skip it. Know it going in anyway, because the captain who assumed they could order two extras finds out at the wrong moment.
How big, and how much fits
The rule is whether it reads from the next table over. That is roughly the distance anybody is ever standing at when they look at your back.
Short wins. One or two words across the shoulders at full width beats four words shrunk to fit the same space, every time. A nickname of four to eight characters lands about right, a surname of twelve starts fighting the shirt, and anything approaching a full sentence should have been on the front.
Deciding it in one league night
Take the same trip around the table you take for sizes. Front or back, then what goes on it, spelled the way they want it, written down in front of them.
Doing that in person catches the two problems that otherwise show up on the finished shirts. Spelling, which nobody gets right by text. And the guy who says he doesn't want anything on his, who is allowed to have a blank one.
Six backs, six answers, one league night. The rest of it happens without you.
The rest of the ordering sequence, from the name to sizes to reorders, is in the captain's guide to team shirts.