The step before manufacturing is the sign-off, and it has to happen in the client's exact colors and logo, or the league is ordering blind.
How I built it
One deck structure, every team: brand intro, palette in exact CMYK/RGB/HEX, jersey spread, pant spread, full lockup. Once approved, the same design gets rebuilt as a separate production file, marked for vendor use, so approved and printed never get confused.
What shipped
BCLL: One deck, nine teams, only the colors changing.
Prodigy: The widest range on any single account, button-downs, crewnecks, softball cuts, multiple colorways and fabric variants.
Outlaws: Two colorways, including a sublimation layout with its own die-cut sheet, since sublimated jerseys print differently.
Where it landed
Several accounts are multi-season relationships, not single projects. A new team's colors and logo drop into an existing system rather than starting a new process- the difference between a supplier called when there's work and a partner a season is planned around.