October 1, 2025
Looking for tips for printed sports programs? Attending a sporting event can be exciting for fans, families, and friends of the team. Cheering on your favorite athletes and their teammates to victory is part of the fun, but it’s hard to know everything about each team member and the organization as a whole. To keep track of all the important details and support the team, many organizations turn to printed sports programs to entertain event attendees, keep fans informed, support their athletes, and even increase their funding.
Deciding what to include in your printed sports program is one of the biggest decisions an organization must make, but when you look at the printed sports programs from the fan’s perspective, it is much easier to choose wisely. And since the experience of being on a team like this may be once-in-a-lifetime for many participants, printed sports programs may be a meaningful memento they keep forever.
Creating printed sports programs that participants and fans will enjoy during the season and at events or games, but also one that they will hold on to for the special memories it captures, will result in a popular program for your organization year after year.
Each organization’s needs are unique to their group, so your printed sports programs may include some, many, or all of these common sections, depending on your group’s size, the popularity of the season with fans, and how you want to integrate sponsorships and advertising into it.
Cover Pages: The front and back covers are the perfect place to include your organization’s name, your team’s name and logo, and the season or year the printed sports programs serve. Thick, glossy cover paper will show off your full-color graphics or photos beautifully and will help you make gorgeous keepsake printed sports programs your fans and families will love. The back page is ideal for a team group photo or a place to thank sponsors, coaches, or even booster clubs for helping to make your program and season a success.
Table of Contents: For longer printed sports programs, providing this handy list will keep the program in good shape for the whole season without users having to dog-ear or mark important pages.
Schedule: Often, the center page is used as a two-page spread for the team’s schedule, even combining Varsity and sub-varsity teams on the same two pages. Putting the schedule on an easy-to-find page is key: the center of a saddle stitched program, the back cover of a perfect bound book or the first page of a plastic coil bound book are all perfect spots for key information.
Including a quick review of last year’s win/loss record, historical data, or other schedule-based content is always appreciated by interested fans and supporters and makes a great addition for keepsakes as well.
Varsity and Sub-Varsity Photos: New group and individual photos are a nice touch when space allows, and some printed sports programs even provide smaller group photos with specialty designations like “Offensive Line” or “Travel Team.”
Group Picture: Using a center spread for a group photo for organizations with a large number of participants is a great way to create a keepsake, but a back page or single-page photo is also appreciated. Be sure to use high-quality photos of at least 300 dpi to ensure your pictures are crisp and clear on every page.
Full Roster: In addition to photos of each team member, consider including a brief set of data on Varsity or participating athletes with current data relevant to the team. Jersey number, physical stats, position, or current part of the organization and any best times or records that will help fans keep up with the team can be included.
Coaching and Management Staff: Pictures, a bio, and a brief letter from each member of the coaching or management staff is a great way to help fans learn about the team’s leadership and what to expect from the upcoming season.
Senior Content: Members in their final year of competition are often highlighted in printed sports programs, so dedicating a page to them at a minimum is the norm. Current pictures, a senior group photo, or even a fun picture of each senior as a young competitor is a great way to honor your group of last-year team members.
Consider including a quick bio of each senior that details their contribution to the team over the years, special accolades or accomplishments, and even their future plans, especially if they include competing for a collegiate or post-secondary school team.
Support Groups: Many organizations have groups that help them make each season a success and acknowledging them in printed sports programs can keep those bonds strong.
Booster or parent clubs often are the backbone of a sports team, and their behind-the-scenes work keeps a team running smoothly. From putting together everything from snack schedules to organizing seasonal banquets, these parent-headed groups provide critical support through regular meetings and fun social events for members and their athletes.
Providing leadership a place to advertise membership, show off pictures from recent events as well as tell fans about the ways they help the team will ensure that those who support the team regularly feel appreciated, too.
Cheerleaders, dance teams, and mascots work hard to create spirit and camaraderie between fans and sports teams, so most teams give them program space to honor their members.
Team Information: Include content about the team, its history, records, and well-known past members to increase fan engagement and encourage athletes during the season.
Action Shots: Solicit professional photos or volunteer shots of past seasons or events to include in the printed sports programs. Consider asking the coach if a discreet photo session is possible during preseason practice or games to build up current pictures to use for the program.
Sponsor Pages/Thank Yous: A brief thank you to anyone involved in bringing the printed sports programs to life is always a welcome addition to a keepsake sports program. Naming sponsors and what they contribute to the team or booster club is an excellent source of free advertising for a business, as well as a perfect thank you to acknowledge major contributors to a team’s success.
List of Advertisers, Sponsors and Contributors: A simple list of all financial contributors gives businesses another opportunity to get their name out to the community and helps program readers to remember which businesses directly support their favorite team when they are making decisions to personally support a community business.
Specialty Pages Sports: printed sports programs projects can also include additional content to help build the sports team community of fans and upcoming athletes.
Younger teams can be featured in the program with team photos, especially if they are promoted as up-and-coming athletes who may one day participate in the Varsity level team competitions.
Social event photos are great to include to show the friendships and fun teammates experience outside of practices and competitions.
Past year memories can add to the keepsake value of printed sports programs. Consider including memorable events in the team’s history, spotlighting successful past teammates, or including a photograph to honor past teams on a significant year’s anniversary of their big win or memorable season. Asking teammates of past years to pose for a photo to include in the printed sports programs is an excellent way to engage the community with your team’s season and build excitement and a fan base for the current season.
Beginning with the binding, putting your printed sports programs together to prepare for printing means choosing the right binding process. Between perfect binding, plastic coil and saddle stitching, each of these three binding options offers value to your printed sports programs, no matter which one you pick.
Perfect binding produces publications with a sleek cover and standard spine like a traditionally bound book. The most formal of the binding options, perfect binding works well for large programs and covers are often gloss coated to enhance full color photography and bright graphic elements.
Plastic coil bindings hold open a program flat, perfect for sports where stats are often kept by fans at games. This flexible and attractive binding makes it easy to open a program flat, perfect for sports where stats are often kept by fans at games.
Saddle stitching is used on programs that have fewer than 80 pages and those that work well with self-covers. Saddle stitching looks great for smaller programs and is a good budget budget-friendly option.
Before you send off the PDF of your program to the printer, make sure to have multiple sets of eyes review it for mistakes and problems. Consider having one of the coaches review the team roster and any stats that are included to make sure that they are up to date.
Ask a booster or parent club officer to review the content on their pages so you can be assured that you present the right information about their group to the fans. Ask one or more students to look over the photo pages to ensure that the right names are attributed to each picture, since it would be heartbreaking to have a keepsake for you or your athlete that misrepresented them in the program.
Once the manuscript is free from any errors and looks good, send it off to the printer that has a quick turnaround so you can make sure that you have them ready to go for the start of the season.
Working with an on-demand printer like Publishing Xpress ensures that you can get your sports program printing done in just a few days, giving you plenty of time to get the programs in the hands of the team, fans, and sponsors and advertisers that helped make this dream a reality for your organization.
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