Sports programs and businesses now have another option when it comes to ordering team apparel and equipment locally, as Evansville-based E.I. Sports is expanding to Owensboro.
Jeff Schaefer, general manager of E.I. Sports, founded the company in 2001 with his dad. He said they are excited to begin serving the Owensboro area.
“Whenever we started the company we basically would sell during the business day and go home and eat with our family and then we would meet at the shop after dinner and start screen printing shirts for the evening,” he said. “We did that for the first six months then we hired our first-ever screen-printer. Since then we’ve been growing and growing and growing.”
Currently, they have 22 full-time employees and operate out of a warehouse and a brick-and-mortar location in Evansville, Ind.
E.I. Sports has custom athletic team uniforms, athletic equipment for all sports, coaches apparel, sideline and spirit gear. They do screen-printing, embroidery, tackle twill and versa cam printing and decals.
Schaefer said while their competitors take orders and ship the material off to a third party for decorating, E.I. Sports does everything at their own facility.
“This allows us to manage jobs in order to meet deadlines and handle quality control issues,” he said. “We feel very strongly that our production staff will take greater care in decorating your new uniforms than the contract screen printer in another city that has no idea who you are or what you are looking for.”
Schaefer said they sell the same equipment and apparel that is being used by D1 schools.
While their market is mainly schools, colleges and athletic programs, Schaefer said they also do work for businesses and local events.
“We’ve been very fortunate — we’ve kind of grown slowly,” Schaefer said. “We did that on purpose. We didn’t want to expand too soon and not do a good job at it.”
While Schaefer said Owensboro is very close to them, it is new territory.
“We wanted to make sure we had someone over there who could call on customers, someone who is local, someone who knew the schools and knew the Owensboro and Western Kentucky landscape,” he said. “We have everything here (in Evansville) and in place to support that. We just needed someone over there who could go out there and sell our services. That’s what we got now with Kevin Porter.”
Porter, who used to work for Owensboro’s 102.7 The Game, is an Owensboro native and said he is excited to get out in the community and start making connections. Porter said he can meet in person or conduct meetings over the phone for those interested.
For more information contact Porter at 678-294-3998 or email [email protected].
