Lincoln, Nebraska-based print shop Relentless Merch landed a contract screen-printing job for the Super Bowl. If the Kansas City Chiefs won the big game on Feb. 11, which we all know they did, the shop needed to print 10,000 shirts before the next morning — putting in an eight-hour overnight shift.

The Chiefs won, so Apparelist got the scoop from Nathan Richardson, co-founder and account executive at Relentless Merch, on how the night went.

APL: What was happening during the fourth quarter of the game for you? Walk me through your feelings, thoughts, etc.

Richardson: Honestly, we were just ready for a yes or no answer by then. Since the game went over on time, it put us a bit behind schedule so we had to make that up over eight hours.

APL: Once the Chiefs secured the win, what happened next?

Richardson: We all had our roles and went to work immediately after. A few of our office staff had to be trained on their temporary role, but it didn’t take too much until we were cookin’.

APL: What equipment setup was used to get the job done? Why did this specific setup work well for what you needed to accomplish?

Richardson: We have all M&R Sportsman’s, M&R Dryers — pretty much everything M&R to be honest with you. The reason we chose M&R is solely because you can get parts quickly stateside.  The factory is eight hours from us, and it’s just built to last.

APL: How did the actual printing go? Any memorable moments from the night?

Richardson: Printing went well, honestly the night was fairly smooth. Nothing too wild. We did drink a lot of coffee and Red Bull though! We had a bit of spoilage, which was in the 2% range so we felt pretty OK about that. We found out that you can’t put your foot on a Sportsman’s head stand or it will cause registration issues.

APL: Did you hit any other issues during the eight hours of printing?

Richardson: Honestly, just the overnight fatigue. We don’t run a late shift, so most of the crew were pretty beat at the end of the night.

⇓ Check out a behind-the-scenes look from the night on Relentless Merch’s Instagram. ⇓

APL: Were you on track with how long you expected it to take?

Richardson: We honestly finished at the exact time we were supposed to finish. At first, it felt like we were going to be late, but it all went smoothly after the first few hours.

APL: What happened to the shirts once they were printed and cured?

Richardson: They were stickered (with an NFL sticker), folded, boxed into cases of 36, and then palletized. The shirts went to KC for distribution, but I’m unsure after that! We saw some in Sam’s Club!

APL: Advice for other print shops taking on contract orders like this?

Richardson: Make sure your whole team is interested in taking it on. Make sure you have the machines to do it, and make sure the margins are good enough that it makes sense to do it.

APL: What’s next for Relentless Merch?

Richardson: We have a lot of bands rolling out on tour in March and April, so we’re excited to move into busy season quicker than normal! Our schedule went from 0 to 60 over the last two weeks, so we’re ready to keep on truckin’!