IP Case Study: How Old School Built Africa's Biggest Sports Merchandise Brand

Image Credit: Old School Limited

In 2019, Daneel and Stef Steinmann were university students at Stellenbosch who wanted to watch the Rugby World Cup in vintage-style Springboks shirts. They went looking for them and found nothing. No one was making them. So they designed their own, put the Springbok emblem on a shirt, and started selling.

The Springboks won the World Cup. Old School sold out completely. What had started as a personal frustration had become a business. What the Steinmann brothers didn't realise at the time was that they had also committed trademark infringement.

The Springbok emblem is a registered trademark owned by the South African Rugby Union. Using it on merchandise and selling it commercially without authorisation is infringement under South African law, regardless of whether the seller knew the mark was protected. Old School didn't know. They saw a gap in the market, filled it, and it worked. Daneel Steinmann has since publicly said that, at the founding stage, they simply didn't understand intellectual property or how rights work. They put a Springbok on a shirt, launched the product, and sold it.

For a few years, nothing happened. This is not unusual. Rights holders tend to direct enforcement resources toward commercial threats rather than student operations. Old School was below that threshold. But it didn't stay there.

By the time the next Rugby World Cup came around in 2023, Old School was a different business. They were prepared, stocked, and visible. On a single day during that tournament, they moved R4 million in Springboks merchandise. That figure, roughly equivalent to what they had made in the entire previous year, signalled how far the brand had come. It was also the kind of scale that attracts attention from rights holders. The South African Rugby Union took legal action against Old School ahead of the opening of their flagship store in Stellenbosch in 2024.

The details of that enforcement action have not been made public. What is known is that it did not end the business. Instead, it forced a restructuring of how Old School operated. They obtained proper licensing, securing authorisation from SARU to sell Springboks merchandise commercially. That shift converted the Springbok relationship from a legal liability into a protected business arrangement. More significantly, it gave the Steinmann brothers a working understanding of how sports licensing operates. And once they had that, they moved quickly.

Licensing in sports merchandise works in layers. At the top, global sportswear brands hold exclusive agreements to design and manufacture official on-field kits. Nike makes the Springboks' match jersey. Adidas makes Real Madrid's. These are separate, high-value agreements negotiated directly with the relevant sports bodies and clubs. Old School does not operate at that level or compete with those brands.

What Old School sells is heritage apparel, throwback ranges, and premium fanwear, clothing designed for fans who want to wear their team as a fashion piece, not a replica shirt. Think the Manchester City shirt you would wear out, not the Nike kit you would wear on the pitch. Same club, different product, different lane. Once they understood that lane and had the licensing infrastructure to operate in it legitimately, the partnerships followed.

Kaizer Chiefs. Orlando Pirates. Bafana Bafana. Then the deals that put Old School on an entirely different map. NBA Africa. Manchester City. Liverpool. Tottenham Hotspur. In March 2026 alone, they added a LIV Golf team to their catalogue. Barcelona and Real Madrid are reportedly in the pipeline.

Each of these partnerships operates on a licensed merchandise agreement. Old School obtains the right to produce and sell approved products carrying the club or federation's marks within a defined territory, pays a royalty on sales, and operates within agreed product categories and quality standards. The rights holder retains control. Old School retains the commercial opportunity. It is a model that has proven highly effective in other markets. In the United States, Mitchell & Ness built an entire business on licensed vintage sports merchandise, throwback jerseys, heritage ranges, and premium fanwear for major American sports leagues. Fanatics acquired Mitchell & Ness in 2022 for USD 250 million, with LeBron James, Jay-Z, and Kevin Hart among the investors. Old School has said openly that this is the model they are building for Africa.

The market conditions support that ambition. The global sports apparel industry is valued at approximately USD 97 billion. South Africa's athleisure segment grew by 7% in 2025, significantly outpacing the country's 1.1% GDP growth. Across the continent, demand for nostalgia-driven, heritage sports merchandise is rising. Old School is currently the only African brand positioned to capture that demand at scale, with over 20 retail locations across South Africa and more than 250 employees.

Their expansion is now moving beyond South Africa. They have registered to operate in India, where they are launching a tribute range for cricketer AB de Villiers tied to his IPL club, Royal Challengers Bengaluru. That expansion illustrates one of the core legal realities of a licensing-based business: rights do not travel automatically. A licence granted by SARU in South Africa does not extend to India. Every new territory requires a fresh licensing agreement with the relevant rights holder, negotiated under the IP laws of that jurisdiction. The compliance burden grows with every new market. So does the competitive moat, because a portfolio of licensed relationships with the NBA, Manchester City, multiple African national federations, and an IPL franchise, built over the years, is not something a new entrant can replicate quickly.

Old School's story is a case study in what happens when a business moves from operating outside IP law to building its entire competitive strategy on IP law. The licensing portfolio they have assembled is now their most valuable asset. It started with an unlicensed Springbok shirt in a Stellenbosch dorm room and a World Cup that their team went on to win. Seven years later, it is the foundation of partnerships with some of the biggest sports properties in the world. The sports formula, premium, vintage-feel, and fan identity are what built the brand. The legal infrastructure beneath it is what makes it last.

Keywords:

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