Champion is arguably one of the most well-known athletic brands — and for a good reason. After all, colleges across the country stock collegiate branded Champion sweatshirts by the thousands. However, the brand has made much more since 1919 than just sweatshirts. For 100 years, Champion has put out reliable and durable apparel, pivoting from sweaters and sweatshirts to team uniforms and fashion runways, all while maintaining its classic look and feel.
“The thing that very few people know is that Champion started as a sweater company,” Matt Waterman, general manager for Champion North America, says. “So the founder made wool sweaters, and he sold them into department stores and dry goods stores, and those sweaters became the basis of Champion’s Athletic line.” Born in 1919, Champion began as the Knickerbocker Knitting Mills company, thanks to the Feinbloom family, in Rochester, New York. “From there, [Champion] started to sell those sweaters to football teams and military academies, who started to wear them not only on the sidelines but also on the football field.” Back then football jerseys were wool-based, anyway, so it wasn’t too big of a leap.
Vintage football jerseys by Champion $17
Swapping jerseys from wool to cotton sparked a massive change in the game of football. Cotton is lighter and more affordable and that tweak really opened up the sport of football to a new generation of kids who probably could not afford wool apparel, Waterman says. Champion changed with the times, outfitting Wentworth Military Academy in 1926, then expanding into college apparel in 1934.
