Atlas Embroidery Blog

by Sarah Talalay Sun-Sentinel.com

South Florida apparel printing companies worked around the clock Thursday night to prepare the first pieces of apparel featuring the names and numbers of the Heat’s new stars LeBron James (No. 6) and Chris Bosh (No. 1).

The team, meanwhile, began a waiting list for fans still hoping to score season tickets, after halting sales Thursday.

The Heat has had some practice with the effect of adding a big superstar to the roster. When Shaquille O’Neal was traded to the Heat in July 2004, the team struggled to keep up with jersey orders and season tickets sold out almost immediately.

But with James — a brand unto himself — and Bosh joining championship-winning superstar Dwyane Wade on the Heat, the impact is larger and at the moment immeasurable.

Pre-orders for jerseys and other gear at Heat.com overnight Thursday were equivalent to a typical two months of sales, said Andy Montero, Heat senior director of retail operations.

“It’s like getting Elvis,” said Montero, who was overseeing retail sales at the Miami Hoops Gear store at AmericanAirlines Arena. “It’s hot market, it’s code blue, whatever you want to call it.”

On the ticket side, the Heat was prepared this time.

“We had a plan in place that if it came to this, we knew exactly what we were going to do,” Heat President of Business Operations Eric Woolworth said. Instead of letting season ticket buyers snatch up every seat at the arena, the team has held back a quarter to a third of the 19,600 seats — mostly in the 300 and 400 levels — to sell as season tickets, in mini-plans, to groups and as individual tickets, Woolworth said.

“When you sell out almost of all of your season tickets, you start playing to almost an exclusive audience,” Woolworth said. “There aren’t as many people in the community who can see the games. We want to make sure there are tickets available to every game.”

Fans can call 786-777-HOOP to reserve a spot on the season ticket waiting list. The team has raised prices on any future season tickets sales and plans to vary the cost of individual tickets depending on the game. Additional tickets are expected to go on sale after the NBA schedule is released likely in August.

Fans weren’t waiting to buy merchandise. Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing in Fort Lauderdale and 5th & Ocean Clothing of Hialeah, were among local companies printing apparel. On Saturday, T-shirts are scheduled to be in some Wal-Mart locations from Florida City to Jupiter, and in Champs stores.

Scott Becher, president of Sports & Sponsorships in Boca Raton, had to stop at two Sports Authority locations to find the right size black James T-shirt for his son, who is at camp in Massachusetts.

“I went out to get a shirt so he can be the first one at camp with one,” said Becher, who like most South Florida Heat fans gets the magnitude of the team’s overnight transformation.

“I guess Pat Riley convinced LeBron that playing God solo in Cleveland can’t top headlining the Heat holy trinity in South Beach. All that remains are the miracles called championships.”

Sarah Talalay can be reached at stalalay@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4173.

by Kevin Gale Portfolio.com

Retailers in South Florida are already seeing dividends paid on LeBron James’ decision to sign with the Miami Heat.

Mitchell Lombard, owner and president of Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing, shows off a freshly screened LeBron James shirt. In addition to a new team, James is changing numbers from his familiar 23 to 6, the same number he wears with USA Basketball.

The color palette of sports marketing in Miami has long been dominated by the aqua and orange of the Miami Dolphins, but expect to see a lot of the black and red of the Miami Heat, starting today.

LeBron James, the king of the NBA, said Thursday he would join all-stars Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in Miami.

“First of all, these guys, they want to win championships, so it’s not about the money for these guys,” said Alan T. Brown, president of PrimeTime Public Relations & Marketing. “These guys want to build a dynasty.”

Adam Cohen, VP of sales for Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had six T-shirt presses on standby Thursday night, and was on a conference call with adidas when James announced his decision.

“As soon as he said ‘South Beach,’ I said ‘spin ‘em, spin ‘em, spin ‘em,’” Cohen said.

A few hours later, tens of thousands of T-shirts had been shipped to the American Airlines Arena, Sports Authority, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Champs Sports, Cohen said. “There were people lined up at all these stores before the merchandise arrived.”

Cohen expects the Heat will have the type of national following that the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bulls had during their dynastic periods.

“This is one of the largest things that has ever happened in professional sports–ever,” he said. “They are basically assembling an all-star team that’s going to compete against the rest of the league.”

There will be a windfall economic impact, with tons and tons of Heat merchandise being sold, he said. After being up all night, he was trying to grab a few hours of sleep before another tractor-trailer load of 30,000 to 40,000 Heat items arrived for finishing.

The potential benefits to the South Florida economy are huge since home games will be high-profile national sporting events that should draw even more South Beach glitterati to the American Airlines Arena.

The area’s tourism industry should reap a bounty of international media attention and an influx of visitors who want to see games. Broadcasts will also provide plenty of beauty shots of South Beach and the Miami skyline– a welcome contrast to recent coverage of the region’s housing bust.

“To have LeBron join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh is truly like hitting the lottery for Heat fans,” said Scott Becher, president of Sports & Sponsorships in Boca Raton, Florida.

Fans in some South Florida neighborhoods reacted by setting off rounds of fireworks on Thursday night, even though it was four days after the Fourth of July.

Getting all three players is a stunning achievement for Heat President Pat Riley, who has already won five NBA championships, and owner Micky Arison, chairman and CEO of Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise company.

The news changes everything for the Heat, Becher said.

“Every game is a sellout. Every game will feel like an all-star game. There are paparazzi. There will be more global interest in the Heat than ever before. Life as we know it as Heat fans has officially changed for the better.”

According to Steve Nudelberg, who has the title of principal thinker at On the Ball Marketing in Plantation, Florida, in the pecking order of South Florida professional sports, even before James’ announcement, the Heat were clearly atop the Miami Dolphins, who have been rebuilding under Executive VP Bill Parcells, and the Florida Marlins, who are building a new stadium in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

The Heat had lost a bit of luster in recent years after winning a championship in 2006, Nudelberg said.

“Over the last year, it was not the ‘in’ place to be,” he said. “This is a South Beach property and the light is on again.”

by Carey Codd CBS4.com

FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS4) — A Ft. Lauderdale t-shirt printing company is especially thankful LeBron James chose the Miami Heat; they say they’ll be printing James t-shirts for weeks.

Adam Cohen, Vice President of Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing, said they brought in extra workers for James’s decision in hopes of firing up the presses. Cohen said they plan to make tens of thousands of shirts over the coming weeks.

“We’ve got 70 employees coming in tonight so it’s a great little kick in the behind for business,” Cohen told CBS4′s Carey Codd Thursday night.

The first batch of shirts should ship out at 4:30 a.m Friday and be available in South Florida stores Friday morning.

The shirts have the James name on the back and the #6 — apparently, the number James will wear with the Heat.

Cohen said it’s great for business and great for the area.

“We’re psyched to be a part of this,” Cohen said. “We’re South Floridians, and this is the best thing that could’ve happened.”

Cohen admits to a bit of inside knowledge about the decision. He said Adidas — the official apparel maker of the NBA — sent him the design for the James shirt a few days ago. Then, Adidas shipped in dozens of boxes of blank t-shirts Thursday.

Cohen is also prepping t-shirts for new Heat player Chris Bosh and returning superstar Dwyane Wade.

Cohen hopes Atlas Embroidery is printing more than individual jerseys in the years to come. When asked if he planned to print championship t-shirts, Cohen said “I hope for the next four years.”

South Florida Business Journal – by Susan R. Miller

Until this week, Fort Lauderdale-based Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing was a little-known company quietly producing promotional shirts, hats, caps and bags for corporate clients – and struggling through a down economy.

Then, in December, Atlas was awarded a statewide contract by Reebok, a subsidiary of German sportswear giant Adidas, to produce the official T-shirt for the Super Bowl.

By 10 p.m. on Feb. 7, as a bucket of Gatorade was being dumped on New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, Atlas’ five screening machines began cranking out championship T-shirts.

“We were given the task of keeping up a production rate of 2,200 pieces per hour,” VP of Sales Adam Cohen said. “We were able to run at maximum efficiency all throughout the night, with all five automatic presses.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2010/02/15/story8.html

ASI Central

With still days of world championship partying ahead in New Orleans, two weeks of intensive Super Bowl-related work are finally winding down for one Florida distributor. As an official project partner with Reebok, Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing (asi/700400) recently produced tens of thousands of Super Bowl-logoed apparel items at its Ft. Lauderdale manufacturing site. “We had our five presses running since the AFC Championship game [two weeks ago],” says Adam Cohen, vice president of sales at Atlas. “After the Super Bowl, we ran them until 10:00 [Monday morning]. This has given us a major shot in the arm.”

The screen printed apparel, which ranges from short sleeve T-shirts to hoodies, was distributed and then sold at sporting goods stores, hotels and other venues throughout Florida. Atlas printed several designs, including items featuring Peyton Manning and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees. “We had been on their [Reebok's] radar and we got an opportunity to put a bid package together,” says Cohen. “We went through an extensive site survey, but it came down to our ability to do the job quickly and efficiently. I’d say we hit it out of the park.”

Rather than hire additional temporary workers, Atlas offered its staff of around 60 employees a large amount of overtime hours. “We probably had 60 to 70 hour weeks,” says Cohen. “It gave us the chance to give our people big chunks of money in their paychecks to start them off well for the year.”

Following this successful run, Atlas is now developing specialty apparel concepts for Reebok for other sports, including NCAA and professional basketball. Already, Atlas works as a prestige partner with Staples Promotional Products (asi/120601), servicing large clients like Coca-Cola, UPS and Google. “We basically work as an in-house ad agency, bringing ideas from the retail side,” says Cohen. “We’re not just a contract printer. We have these specialty projects as well.”

T-Biz TV is a T-Shirt Industry internet TV show hosted by Scott Fresener of T-BizNetwork.com. In this special Super Bowl Pre-Game show Scott talks about the “Who Dat” T-Shirt controversy with the NFL and interviews Adam Cohen of Atlas Embroidery & Screen Print who is printing pre- and post- game shirts for the Super Bowl.

It’s Saints merch mania at one local company, which is printing up to 2,000 shirts an hour

By CAROLYN RYAN

NBC MIAMI

As Saints fans took to South Florida streets to party after the big win on Sunday night, one local company was hard at work.

As soon as the game ended, the employees at Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing went to work printing up thousands of Saints Championship t-shirts. More than 50 employees pulled an all-nighter to complete the task, printing tens of thousands of t-shirts to be shipped to retailers all across the state.

Atlas is the only authorized company in South Florida to print the official NFL shirts, the graphics for which were provided by Reebok. The shirts were even worn by the Saints players after the game in the locker room.

Vice President Adam Cohen said the contract to print the championship shirts means big money for them.

“For the last couple of weeks our employees have been working hard, putting in lots of overtime hours to get these shirts ready to go. Last night we didn’t stop production other than a few small breaks here and there. We’ve been running on cuban coffee and Red Bull, but it will all pay off in the end,” said Cohen.

The company was printing up to 2,000 shirts per hour. They’ll hit retailers shelves later today.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Saints-Shirts–Big-Business-83809452.html

South Florida Business Journal – by Susan R. Miller

Adam Cohen pulled an all-nighter following the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl victory.

The company he works for, Fort Lauderdale-based Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing, went into overdrive Sunday night, printing the official Super Bowl T-shirt.

“We were given the task of keeping up a production rate of 2,200 pieces per hour. That started at 10 last night,” said Cohen, vice president of sales. “We were able to run at maximum efficiency all throughout the night with all five automatic presses.”

Cohen said he spent much of Sunday night working and conducting media interviews.

Getting the Super Bowl contract wasn’t easy. There was an intensive interview with Reebok, the official master licensee of the NFL, Cohen said.

Reebok won’t let him divulge just how many shirts Atlas is producing, but he said it had received a few 53-foot trailer loads, with more on the way.

Atlas also produced the AFC Championship T-shirts, and was making them right up until the Super Bowl.

“We have been on pretty much a 24-hour schedule for the last two weeks,” Cohen said. “We printed dueling merchandise for the last two weeks – that’s your head-to-head matchup T’s.”

There was a bit of scrambling at the last minute, admits Cohen, a diehard New England Patriots fan.

“We hedged our bets toward Colts, we had the facility set up to run Colts merchandise on three of the five presses, so we could be ready to react,” he said.

But, as the clock ticked down, Atlas realized it needed to change its game plan.

“As soon as the Gatorade was dumped on the coach, Saints merchandise began to run,” he said.

Atlas was started in 2002 by Mitchell Lombard, who lost his job in corporate America just after Sept. 11. He began with one machine and two employees in a 900-square-foot bay.

Today, there are five machines and 60 employees. Cohen said most have been working in shifts around-the-clock for the last two weeks.

Although it’s a big contract, Cohen said the Super Bowl deal is “just gravy on top of our traditional business.”

Atlas produces specialty apparel packages for several Fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Subaru, Google, Anheuser-Busch and UPS.

The shirts are being sold to all tiers of retail south of Jacksonville.

Copyright 2010 bizjournals.com

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4)

Reporting
Tiffani Helberg

With two minutes left in the Super Bowl, a Fort Lauderdale small business launched into overdrive. Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing began printing the official Super Bowl T-shirt with the Saints as the winner. Nearly all the employees were expected to work through the night to keep the presses going.

“We’ve got five automatic presses and each of those presses will be doing about 400 pieces per hour,” estimated owner Adam Cohen. “So I don’t know. I figure 2,000 pieces per hour.”

The machines are expected to run for at least 14 hours straight, cranking out T-shirts that will be distributed throughout the Southeast region.

“I’m feeling as though its gonna be a very long night,” Cohen said. “You know we’ve got a lot of things going on here. We’ve got a ton of production to do.”

While the big game is over for the Saints and the Colts, the big game is just beginning for this small business. But they said they are eager to do it as it also means a big financial windfall.

“In this economy, it’s definitely been great,” he said.

The first set of official Super Bowl shirts were printed ahead of time so that the Saint would be able to wear them as soon as the game was over. Now, the rest of the batches will go to eager fans.

http://cbs4.com/local/printing.saints.tshirt.2.1478448.html

“Don’t expect to get rich,” the NFL warns potential contractors–at least not from the contract itself.

Mitchell Lombard, owner of Fort Lauderdale’s Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing, isn’t forking over $2.7 million for 30 seconds of airtime at Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIV – for him, just doing business with the NFL is ad enough.

“It’s a feather in our cap,” says Lombard, whose 60-person company will churn out thousands of t-shirts bearing the champions’ name once the whistle blows. “It’s a very small piece of our business – it’s more of an accomplishment than anything else.” (There’s maybe a bit of understatement there: Lombard also says the contract allows employees “to get overtime and make back some of what they didn’t get in 2009.”)

For the big game, the NFL will hire dozens of small companies for jobs ranging from crafting mini metal lockers (tickets for premium seat holders are delivered in them) to arranging floral centrepieces for pre-game dinners. The businesses jump through major hoops for contracts that usually require a last-minute sprint – and low margins. The big prize, though, is not the money from the work itself – “though it’s sweet because the economy is so rocky,” says Lombard – but the experience, contacts and credibility that result in big payoffs later. Lesson: Don’t judge a contract’s worth only in dollars.

“Once you’re able to put on your client listing that you did business with the NFL for the Super Bowl, it gives you a lot of credibility,” says Solomon Davis, vice president of Tampa’s Sol Davis Printing, which had contracts with the NFL totalling $31,000 for Super Bowl XXXV in 2001.

“Did we make a substantial amount of money? No. Did we get some exposure? Yes,” he told Tampa Tribune. “Money-wise, it certainly wasn’t what people thought we got.” (Page 6 of the NFL’s handbook for its Emerging Business Program, which targets women and minority-owned business, reads: “Do not expect to ‘get rich’ through this program.” The words “Do not” are underlined and printed in boldface type.)

Still, the publicity played a huge part in the company’s ability to exp and, adding equipment and employees (Sol Davis Printing has grown from Davis and his son to 13 people, for example.)

Francine Powers’ Miami catering company We’re Having a Party has participated in three Super Bowls, and Super Bowl 2010 – for which she’s making boxed meals for parking lot attendants and soup for an NFL tailgate party – will be her fourth.

“Each time I bid, I act like it’s the first time,” Powers told CNN Money. “I don’t take any of it for granted. This type of work is not going to make you a ton of money, but it puts your business on a better footing.”

Case in point: Another big job – a contract for the Academy Awards Governor’s Ball in Los Angeles – came from the corporate caterer she subcontracted for during the 1995 Super Bowl. And the exposure and experience (she says it taught her to handle high customer volume) Powers gained from working the Super Bowl allowed her to move her business from her home into commercial space. She also could afford new equipment.

Looking for a slice of next year’s Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas? Don’t wait – the game of contracts actually already has kicked off.