If you have a keen eye, you might have noticed a change of advertising on the blog in the last week or two. I had an idea last year that there’s lots of rugby league logos around that go by the wayside and that some might look good on a cap or a t-shirt. I found a print on demand service and taught myself to trace in Illustrator and produced a couple dozen designs from old photos and crappy scans.
I launched pythagord.com (Pythago RD or “pi-thag-ord”) earlier this year and it was extremely well received on Twitter and generated a few sales off the bat. I then sent emails to a dozen clubs to see if anyone was interested in being partners, with me doing all the work and paying a cut to clubs to avoid any potential intellectual property disputes, as well as trying to generate some revenue for them. With any luck, I could ride their coattails and their fans would help turn a profit at some point. I got a nibble from Wests and a very polite no from Glebe (which was fine, as they were pretty much doing the same thing) but otherwise it was met with silence.
It took me a while to realise I wasn’t getting anything back. It took me longer to work out what to do about it and then longer still to actually do anything. I held off on promoting the site in the meantime. I ended up reformatting most of the products to remove references to the original club – except the BRL and QComp club stuff, which should exist anyway and it’s a crime that it didn’t so now it does – but you can find what you’re looking for using the team nickname.
The aim now is to make some return on my investment. In the absence of reliable cooperation from the better known clubs and trying to avoid a minefield of trademark and copyright law, I’d like to expand the offering in these ways. If you:
- Know of any rugby league club, whether they be juniors in search of some revenue or seniors with a suitably interesting logo or name, who would like a cost effective, low risk merchandising solution with no minimum orders or stock keeping;
- Are a budding or accomplished graphic designer and have some rugby league designs that might look good on a piece of clothing and want to see some royalties;
- Produce a podcast or blog and want to sell some t-shirts to sympathetic friends or families to raise some beer money (Sports BFs is already on board)
If you bought something under the impression that a cut would be going to the club, my apologies but they don’t appear to be interested in your money. I gave it to Men of League instead (and matched it with my own money), so if nothing else, some good came out of this:
Also some cool rugby league stuff happened in Barcelona and Blackpool on the weekend but you should already be across that. The vista of rugby league’s future continue to expand despite itself.
Here are the tips for this weekend’s action:
National Rugby League
Intrust Super Cup
Pythago NRL 