Sublimated Jerseys vs Screen Printed: Which Is Right for Your Team's Kit?

Choosing between a sublimated jersey and a screen printed jersey is one of those decisions that looks small until finals week, when one team's colours are still sharp and the other's logo has started to crack down the middle. If you are researching sublimated jerseys vs screen printed for an upcoming season, the short answer is that they are not really interchangeable products, they are two different manufacturing processes with different strengths. This guide breaks down what each method actually does to the garment, how they compare on durability and colour, and what it costs a small team to order either way.

Sublimated Jerseys vs Screen Printed: How the Two Processes Differ

Screen printing applies ink to the surface of a finished garment. A design is pushed through a mesh stencil, one colour at a time, and the ink sits on top of the fabric. It works well on cotton tees and simple one or two colour logos, but every extra colour means another pass through the press, and the ink layer can eventually crack, peel or fade with repeated washing and stretching, which matters a lot for a jersey that gets worn, sweated in and washed every week of a season.

Sublimation works differently. The design is printed onto transfer paper using dye based ink, then heat and pressure turn that dye into a gas that bonds directly into the fibres of the fabric. Rather than sitting on top of the garment, the colour becomes part of it. That is why sublimated jerseys can carry full colour graphics, gradients, sponsor logos and player names across the whole garment without the print ever sitting proud of the fabric or peeling away from it.

Champion Teamwear uses 100% sublimation printing on its Pro-Sport polyester jerseys, across basketball, netball, soccer, rugby, AFL and the rest of the range. That combination, a polyester base built for sport and a dye that bonds into it rather than sitting on it, is the specific pairing this comparison is really about.

Durability: How Each Print Method Holds Up Over a Season

Durability is where the practical difference between sublimation and screen printing shows up fastest for a coach or team manager. Because sublimated ink becomes part of the polyester fibre rather than a layer on top of it, there is no surface coating to crack, flake or peel off with wear. That matters for contact sports in particular, where jerseys get pulled, tackled and dragged across the ground, and for any club that expects a kit to survive more than one season of weekly washing.

Screen printed ink, by contrast, is applied as a layer on top of the garment. Over time, especially with frequent washing, stretching over pads or braces, or contact with other players, that layer is more prone to cracking or lifting at the edges. It is not that screen printing is a poor process on its own, it is simply built for a different job, shorter runs of simpler designs on garments that will not see the same wash and wear cycle as a season long sports jersey.

Champion Teamwear's own guide on comparing custom jersey pricing, MOQs and turnaround times makes a similar point when it comes to choosing any supplier: fabric durability and colour retention after washing are two of the things worth checking before assuming a cheaper option is the better deal. That advice applies just as much when the comparison is between print methods as it does between suppliers.

Colour Vibrancy and Design Freedom

The second big difference between a sublimated jersey and a screen printed one is what you can actually put on it. Screen printing charges by the colour, because each colour is a separate pass through the press, so a design with a gradient, a photographic sponsor logo, or a fade between team colours quickly gets expensive or gets simplified down to something the printer can manage in two or three flat colours.

Sublimation does not work that way. Because the whole design is printed as one continuous image and then bonded into the fabric in a single heat press cycle, there is no extra cost for extra colours, gradients or fine detail. That is a big part of why club and representative jerseys with full colour panels, fades and sponsor blocks are almost always sublimated rather than screen printed. It is also why the colour itself looks different up close, a sublimated print sits flush with the weave of the fabric rather than as a slightly raised layer, so it reads as part of the jersey rather than something stuck onto it.

For a team that wants its own colour combination, crest, sponsor logos and player names all on the one jersey without paying more for every extra colour, that design freedom is usually the deciding factor, and it is worth seeing it in practice using the online jersey customiser before locking in a design.

Cost at Low Volumes: What It Means for a Small Team Order

Cost is usually the first question a team manager actually asks, and it is where sublimation's economics genuinely help a small order rather than hurt it. Screen printing setup costs are tied to the number of colours and the number of screens that need to be burned, which is why small screen print runs often come with a per colour surcharge or a minimum order quantity to make the setup worthwhile for the printer.

Sublimation sidesteps that structure. Because the design is printed digitally rather than screen by screen, there is no meaningful setup cost that scales with colour count, and that is reflected in how Champion Teamwear prices its jerseys. There is no minimum order quantity, so a team ordering one jersey for a milestone game and a team ordering a full squad both get served, and the pricing page shows unit price stepping down as quantity goes up rather than jumping at some hidden MOQ threshold. As an example, a basketball jersey runs $89.95 for a single unit and steps down to $59.95 each once an order reaches seven units, with every extra logo or design element included in that price rather than billed separately.

That structure matters most for the teams who feel MOQs the hardest, a club fielding one extra grade this season, a school with a smaller squad, or a social team that just wants matching kit without committing to twenty identical jerseys. Because the print method does not add cost per colour or per garment, a small sublimated order is not penalised the way a small screen print order often is.

Which Should Your Team Choose

For anyone still weighing sublimated jerseys against screen printed ones, the decision usually comes down to what the jersey needs to survive and how detailed the design is. A single colour logo on a garment that will not see heavy wash and wear, a one off event shirt, a fundraiser tee, can be a reasonable fit for screen printing. A season long team jersey that needs to handle weekly washing, contact, full colour team branding and sponsor logos is a better fit for sublimation, because the print is built into the fabric rather than sitting on top of it.

For competitive or representative teams in particular, where the jersey needs to look sharp for photos, hold its colour through a full season of matches, and carry sponsor and club branding without extra cost per colour, sublimation on a proper sport specific fabric like Pro-Sport polyester is generally the more practical choice. Screen printing still has its place for simpler, shorter run garments, but it is solving a different problem to the one most team managers are actually trying to solve when they search for sublimated jerseys vs screen printed comparisons.

Getting Your Team's Design Right

Whichever direction feels right for your club, the most useful next step is to see the actual colours, logo placement and fabric options before committing to an order. Champion Teamwear's customiser lets you build a jersey in your own team colours and see the full colour, no extra charge sublimation process in action, and the pricing page lays out exactly what a squad of your size will cost with no minimum order quantity to work around. Between the durability of a print that is bonded into Pro-Sport polyester rather than sitting on top of it, the freedom to use as many colours as the design needs, and pricing that does not punish small orders, sublimation is generally the stronger fit for a jersey that has to survive a full season, not just a single wear.