Sports marketing gets creative with 3D printing

In the world of professional sports, marketing is a central part of the business and has been for over a century. Back in the 19th century, brands realized they could market and sell their products by linking them with popular sports teams and athletes (i.e. tobacco trading cards). Today, sports marketing has grown into a multi-billion-dollar market that is practically inextricable from the sports we play and fan over. To keep up in this competitive landscape, sports brands and professional sports organizations alike have continued to innovate on the marketing front, using physical and digital campaigns to connect with fans, engage new audiences, and in some cases, go completely viral.

In this article, we’ll be looking at some cutting-edge sports marketing initiatives, from football to golf, that have leveraged 3D printing in creative and engaging ways.

Crewe Alexandra F.C. launches kit campaign with 3D printed figurine

Professional football clubs are increasingly trying to capitalize on kit collecting crazes and gaining new fans internationally by marketing their merchandise in creative ways. In 2021, for instance, Italy’s Venezia FC went mega-viral for its high-fashion kit launch campaign with Kappa, while in 2024 British Premiere League club Aston Villa garnered mainstream buzz for launching its kit campaign in collaboration with Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler. Now, British League Two team Crewe Alexandra F.C. is taking its kit marketing to a whole new level with 3D printing.

Based in the railway town of Crewe in Cheshire, England, Crewe Alexandra F.C. recently launched its 2026/2027 season home kit in collaboration with local company Hybrid Services, the exclusive distributor in the UK and Ireland of Mimaki’s full-color 3D printing technologies (and other printing solutions). The kit itself, a mostly red shirt with a diamond pattern and white and black details, is produced by Puma and sponsored by a manufacturer of ice cream vans.

To promote the kit launch, Crewe Alexandra F.C. head of commercial, James Beckett, wanted to do something a bit out of the box. With Hybrid Services as an official partner of the football club, Beckett knew about Mimaki’s printing technologies but when he saw its full-color 3D printing, he knew there was something special there. “We’re constantly amazed at the capabilities of the various Mimaki technologies, and ever since we first saw the full colour 3D printer in action, we had an idea to somehow include it in a big production for the club,” he said.

The idea was thus born to 3D scan the team’s captain Mickey Demetriou and promote the new kit using an ultra-realistic 3D printed miniature of him. The process involved capturing a full body scan of Demetriou using an Artec Leo 3D scanner from Europac 3D. He underwent two scans: one of him wearing last season’s kit and another of him wearing the new home shirt. The scanner captured every detail, from the captain’s facial expression to the subtle folds of the fabric.

The scan data was processed by Europac 3D and readied for 3D printing. From there, Hybrid Services reproduced the football captain in miniature using the Mimaki 3DUJ-2207 full-colour 3D printer. The printer, which is based on a UV-curing inkjet process, is reportedly capable of printing over 10 million colors and achieving very high definition and detail. This makes it ideal for 3D printing things like toys and marketing figurines.

The 20-centimeter-tall miniature captain was used as the basis for Crewe Alexandra F.C.’s kit launch campaign, in which it also highlighted the high-tech process of bringing the 3D print to life. The campaign proved to be a success: within days of posting the 3D printing kit launch video on social media, the club had already garnered tens of thousands of views, with many commenters asking whether the figurine was itself going to be available to purchase.

Real Madrid 3D prints stadium memorabilia

As attached as sports fans can be to specific teams, they can also form strong connections with stadiums—something that savvy sports marketers are ready to capitalize on. In my own home of Montreal, for instance, the Olympic stadium used for the 1976 Summer Olympics has become an icon of the city and is featured on t-shirts, tote bags, and many other souvenirs.

In Spain, the Santiago Bernabéu stadium has been home to professional football club Real Madrid since 1947 and has drawn people from all over the world to its seats. In recognition of the strong connection people have had to the stadium—and in the context of a big redevelopment of the site in recent years—Real Madrid launched the Official Memorabilia Portal in 2023, which sells pieces and parts of Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. One such product is an original seat from the stadium, which has been cleverly adapted into a functional chair with the addition of a 3D printed base.

Currently on sale for US$382, the chair integrates the original Real Madrid crest seat from the stadium with a “low-profile base manufactured using robotic 3D printing” and recycled plastic. The memorability platform also sells other 3D printed seating products, including a stool ($700) and a carbon composite stool ($865). An Authenticity Hologram is included with each of the limited edition products.

BBC turns to 3D printing for Winter Olympics video campaign

To promote its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics this past February, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched an impressive video campaign that featured 700 3D printed figurines. The stop-motion animation, which was made in partnership with London-based animation studio NOMINT, is 45 seconds long and is a captivating representation of various types of athletes quite literally blazing trails.

In realizing the short animated ad, NOMINT 3D printed 700 figurines and used real combustion techniques for the eye-catching fire effects. Other animation techniques, like replacement animation, were also used. This stop-motion process involves using a separate 3D printed figure in every frame designed and animated in software, before being physically manufactured.

To create the fire effect, the team worked with pyrotechnic technicians who used several different approaches, including steel wire, mushroom powder, and iron filings to generate sparks. Then, light painting was applied to amplify the blaze.

“This project was technically demanding and creatively exhilarating,” said Yannis Konstantinidis, NOMINT co-founder. “From our very first conversation with BBC Creative, we knew we had the chance to pursue the near-impossible. It demanded absolute trust and a willingness to take real creative risks in pursuit of something extraordinary.”

Artist-designed 3D printed collectibles for golf tournaments

Cleeks Golf Club, a professional golf franchise competing in the multi-stage LIV Golf tournament, has teamed up with a series of artists and full-color 3D printing company Mimaki to produce a series of limited edition collectibles. These collectibles consist of 14 different miniature golf bags, each featuring a design from the “Art of Golf” collection.

The 3D printed bag collectibles are actually miniature versions of the real bags being used by Cleeks Golf Club players at this year’s LIV Golf tournament. The 3D printed bags are 15-cm-tall and exactly replicate the colorful patterns and motifs of the full-sized versions. This was achieved thanks to the full-color capabilities of the 3DUJ-554 3D printer, which could capture the hues, patterns, and textures of the real bags in mini.

“When it comes to high-quality collectibles, this project perfectly exemplifies the capability of our 3D printing proposition—namely short-run, highly precise, full-color output consistent from one piece to the next and delivered in a matter of hours,” Matthew Stark, 3D Segment Manager at Mimaki, said. “The reality is that for projects like this, 3D printing is really the only viable option. Aside from the time and cost associated with conventional methods, the level of realism and fine detail we’re able to achieve would be impossible with techniques like traditional hand model-making.”

The 14 miniature bag designs have been made in limited quantities of just 25 units each. This means that only 350 of the 3D printed collectible models are available for purchase. Mimaki also 3D printed a smaller number of half-scale player bags (50 cm), which are being used as showpieces in the clubhouses at each LIV tournament event.

F&F markets MLB products with large-scale 3D print

In an example from the archives, major Korean fashion retailer F&F leveraged large-scale 3D printing in 2019 to create an 8.5-foot baseball player for one of its stores. The massive mannequin, which is big, blue, and ready to bat, was used to promote Major League Baseball (MLB) merchandise.

The 3D printed baseball player was made in collaboration with South Korea-based digital printing company printHpole, which used a Massivit 1800 3D printer to realize the large-scale marketing prop. Despite the 3D printer’s large build size of 1450 x 1110 x 1800 mm, the even bigger baseball player had to be printed in separate pieces. Assembly and finishing were carried out by hand.

“It is the first time we have worked with Massivit 3D printing and the result is far better than we expected,” said the space planning team at F&F. “We loved the high quality and how this technology supported design and finishing flexibility. Also, we were very happy to be able to meet the project’s very tight time schedule.”

As we said, the 3D printed baseball player was installed in 2019 in F&F’s MLB store in Seoul. According to relatively recent images of the retail space, the one-of-a-kind 3D printed mannequin is still in the shop, ready to bat.