Custom Flags – Stadium Flags vs Spirit Flags

The one question I get asked most often about our custom flags is, “what is the difference between your custom 3’x5′ stadium flags and your custom 3’x5′ spirit flags.”

There are more than just a few differences and I will try to explain them all here.

First, let me start by saying, the most important criteria when selecting a type of flag and the question I ask every customer is, “what are you going to do with your flags, what are you trying to accomplish.”  Not many people know what kind of flag they want but almost everyone knows what they want to accomplish.  I will first address a bullet list of the differences between the two types of flags and then I will address how to accomplish some common goals with flags.

Custom 3’x5′ Spirit Flags

– made of 100 D (denier) polyester

– lightweight, fly in very little wind

– minimum order is 50

– all flags have to be the same design/colors

– no blended colors, screen printed, prices include 2 colors plus white (extra colors slight up charge)

– normally come with grommets but can be made with pole sleeves

– tightly woven fabric so images are very crisp and colors are vibrant

– come in rectangle only

Custom 3’x5′ Stadium Flags

– made of 140gsm (grams per square meter) polyester

– fly very well but not as easily as spirit flags

– minimum order is 1

– each flag in the same order can be different

– blended colors are ok, even photos, colors are unlimited

– normally come with a pole sleeve but can be made with grommets

– coarser fabric, images are crisp but not as crisp as spirit flags, colors are good but not as vibrant as spirit flags

– come in rectangle or pennant shape

Now that we have that out of the way, how should you use them.  Let’s explore that, using some common goals.

Scenerio 1:  “I want 10 flags for my stadium,  all of the same design, what is my best option”, my first question is, “are you flying them 24/7 or just on game days?”, if the answer is 24/7 then the only good answer is Spirit Flags because you would not want to spend the money ($65 each) for stadium flags and wear them out in just one season.  If they will only be flown on game days, the answer gets a little more complicated.

Lets look at Stadium flags for this application – 10 3’x5′ stadium flags are $650 plus $30 shipping.  If you are putting them up and taking them down you will probably want our pole holders which are $8 each, so your total bill is $760 for 10 flags that will last you for many seasons since you will only be flying them 5 days a year for football and about 25 days a year for baseball at your home games.

Now let’s look at Spirit Flags for this application – 100 3’x5′ spirit flags are $1050 plus $30 shipping.  Since the spirit flags are so inexpensive, it only makes sense to put them up at the beginning of the season and take them down and throw them away when the season is over.  Take 50 flags out of the box and put them in a safe place so you will have 10 crisp new flags each year for the next 5 years.  Take the other 50 flags to your first game and put a booster club member in charge of selling them for $20 each.  In most cases, you will sell all 50 the first game and make $1000 so your net cost of having stadium flags for 5 years is $80, not bad.  You don’t need the pole holders since you are going to semi-permanently attach the poles to the stadium and leave them up.

Scenario 2:  “I want 50 flags for my stadium but I want half red and have blue”.  Again I ask, “24/7 or just game days”.  If it is just game days, we have about the same situation.

Stadium Flags – 25 red and 25 blue flags along with pole holders and shipping are $2050.

Spirit Flags – 100 Red and 100 blue flags are two separate orders so they cost $1080 each for a total of $2160.  Again, no need to get pole holders, use 50 per year and leave them up and you have 4 years of crisp flags.  If you are an entrepreneur,  go ahead and get the pole holders so your total bill is $2390.  Take 25 out of each box, sell the remaining 150 flags for $20 each and you now have $3000 which is a $610 profit in addition to your 50 free stadium flags and poles.

Now that I have your appetite wetted for selling Spirit Flags, let’s see just how far we can take this.

The more you buy, the cheaper they are.  The cheaper they are, the lower the price you can sell them for and the higher the profit margin,  The lower the price you sell them, the more you sell…you get the idea.  250 are just $9 each, 500 are just $7.50 each and 1000 are just $5.50 plus shipping.

The fundraising side of the Spirit Flags is nice but, I prefer the Spirit Raising side.  Our Spirit Flags have breathed new life into struggling sports programs across the country.

Consider the case of one such rural community in Texas.  Wins had come hard for this high school football program and as we all know, the school and every other program lives and breathes on the interest garnered by the football program.  On a typical Friday night during football season, the stands were half full and the team was loosing.  Enter the Spirit Flags.  The booster club bought and sold 1500 spirit flags one year.  They sold them to students and businesses all over town.  Suddenly there were flags flying all over town and everyone was curious to see what what was happening with the football program.  What do curious people do?  They go see what the fuss is all about.  Now, the stands were full and the school even had to put ropes around the end zones for standing room only areas to handle the overflow.  The team started winning and made the playoffs for 4 straight years. Was it all the spirit flags?  Well, I’m not going to say it wasn’t.

Now here is the un-calculated benefit…ticket sales to Friday night games are $6 each and with an increase of just 1000 tickets per game equals 5000 tickets a season and that is an additional $30,000 for the sports programs…just sayin!