I have basically come to the conclusion that 90% of Athletic Directors are cheap and swag deficient. This being said it makes pitching helmet and uniform designs to them difficult. The other thing that AD’s share is that they are all whores. They will do anything for a buck. A quick look at the mess that was impact camo from Adidas, the 3/4 helmet of the Irish, the tragic combination that have come from the Nike Pro Combat serious, just to name a few. Showcase how an Ad’s will sell their mother if the price is right. Schools making $70 mil a year off of a football team will tell me we don’t have the money to pay you to design something. They would rather sell something ugly that they get paid to wear than pay a nickel to wear something that the fans want.
The lightbulb in my head ^ went off after countless posts and tweets from fans asking how do we get those helmets. I was saying tell your school or the brands but they don’t listen. My solution Kickstater. To outfit a team in new decals is pretty cheap as long as the team already has the helmet color and mask you are wanting to use on the new helmet. Helmets are not cheap, but regular decals are very cheap. A school that has 3 or 4 different helmet colors is basically just pissing money away because they can. For the price of a handful of helmets a team can redo its look in decals. The only problem is that the helmet companies don’t want that and having 15 helmets is the athletic department version of measuring your manhood.
I like all of you want new uniforms and helmets but I only want them if they look good. It makes me shake my head ever time I see a school spend $1000 per helmet to look silly. I am looking at you Va Tech. It also makes me cry when I see a school buy 5 new helmets all in different colors but not a single one of them is good. Looking at you Mr. Weis and your Jayhawks.
So, how can kickstarter solve this problem that is running wild in college football? Let the fans pay for the helmet they want and then give it to the school. The school can give the fans something they want without having to pay for it. I get to make sweet helmets without some pleated khaki wearing AD telling me what is in fashion. Football as a whole moves forward.
I chose to start this swag revolution in Mississippi of all places. Southern Miss to be more exact. I picked Southern Miss because their fans have gone nuts over a few of the helmets that I have created. The team last year spent a bunch of money on yellow helmets that were blah.
There were two helmets that a ton of fans wanted to see were the two pictured above. I decided to do the Kickstarter for the top one. If it raises enough money we can always do option 2.
I want bring the fans choice to more schools. I just don’t know what schools fans are dying to have something new. Let me know if you school needs a swag upgrade.
