A throwback jersey represents many things. For some, it’s a way to honor legendary players from their favorite sports teams. For others, it’s a callback to hip-hop style in the 2000s, a reminder of the “Welcome to Atlanta (Remix)” video or Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life tour. It can also simply be the statement piece of an outfit. In any case, it’s all about getting fresh. And no matter where your mind goes when you think of a throwback jersey, there is usually one other constant: It came from Mitchell & Ness.
Since cooling off after their heyday in the ’90s through the 2000s, throwback jerseys have been making a resurgence in the last few years. Rappers like Playboi Carti have piqued the youth’s interest by wearing classic NBA jerseys of Allen Iverson, Penny Hardaway, and Vince Carter. Renewed interest in vintage jerseys has also contributed to the boom, alongside popular brands like Cactus Plant Flea Market, House of Errors, and Diallo releasing new takes on jerseys in mesh and knit varieties. Mitchell & Ness has been taking advantage of that momentum.
Mitchell & Ness’ status in the world of jerseys has been cemented for years, thanks to its consistent output and commitment to high quality products. Now owned by Fanatics with minority-stake investors like Jay-Z and LeBron James, the brand has been rapidly expanding its reach even further in the fashion realm. From its humble beginnings in the 1900s to its most recent collaboration with Supreme, we took a look at the history of Mitchell & Ness.
The Beginning of Mitchell & Ness
Mitchell & Ness was founded in 1904 in Philadelphia by Frank Mitchell and Charles Ness. This was long before wearing a sports jersey as everyday attire was a thing. Initially a sporting goods shop located on Arch Street in Philadelphia, Mitchell & Ness sold equipment such as tennis racquets and golf clubs.
By 1925, the business expanded to outfitting local high school and college sports teams with uniforms. Throughout the ’30s, Mitchell & Ness became the official uniform providers for local professional teams, the Eagles and Phillies. It wasn’t until the 1980s when Mitchell & Ness found the niche that it’s known for today: producing and selling authentic sports jerseys to fans, not just athletes.
The Birth of the Throwback Jersey
This is how the story goes: One day in 1985, a man came into the shop looking to repair two old baseball jerseys: a game-worn 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates vest and game-worn 1949 St. Louis Browns jersey. Then-owner Peter Capolino (whose family acquired the company in the ’50s) happened to have yards of unused wool flannel that he discovered in a nearby factory, which he used to repair them. With the leftover fabric, Capolino also produced a small run of extra jerseys to sell. They immediately sold out at $100 a piece. By 1988, the MLB gave Mitchell & Ness the official license to create jerseys featuring the names and numbers of players. The rest is history.
Hip-Hop Embraces Mitchell & Ness
It wasn’t until hip-hop adopted its throwbacks in the late ’90s that Mitchell & Ness was catapulted to wider popularity and became a household name. It really started in 2001 when Philly resident Reuben “Big Rube” Harley, who had been purchasing Mitchell & Ness throwback jerseys since 1991, approached Capolino and suggested the company hone in on the hip-hop community that had organically taken to its jerseys. Capolino embraced the vision and Big Rube became a liaison between Mitchell & Ness and some of the biggest names in hip-hop.
From 1994 to 1996, Mitchell & Ness also further established itself in pop culture by working with MTV to produce the uniforms for its series of Rock N’ Jock celebrity basketball and softball games. Each design was based on actual throwback jerseys—’94 by the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, ‘95 softball by the Yankees classic pinstripes, and ‘95 basketball by the Lakers and Celtics.
Big Boi’s appearance in Goodie Mob’s “Black Ice (Sky High)” video from 1998 took things to a whole different level. He wore a Houston Astros 75-85 Home jersey. Andre 3000, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Fabolous were among the main trendsetters that followed.
“Hip-hop was a big force in the marketing and promotion of throwback jerseys,” Fabolous tells Complex. “Artists like myself and Big Rube were walking billboards, making throwback jerseys primetime.”
In less than five years, Mitchell & Ness’ sales escalated from $2.2 million to $36 million.
Don C was a torchbearer for Mitchell & Ness jerseys in the Midwest, supplying his close friend Kanye West and the rest of his Chicago circle with wholesale jerseys. Eventually, there was no rap performance or music video without a cameo of Mitchell & Ness’ colorful throwbacks.
“I still don’t think there’s an era that was as impactful as the jersey era,” says rapper and known jersey collector Conceited. “East Coast, the St. Lunatics, people on the West Coast, it was just a nationwide era of fashion that everybody wanted to emulate. You turn on every music video, that’s all you would see.”
The throwback was such a key piece of hip-hop’s uniform at the time that even a young John Cena, whose character in WWE was a rapper, would wear them to the ring to match the particular city he was performing in each night. The jerseys were inescapable.
As all white-hot fashion trends eventually do, throwback jerseys fell out of vogue by the end of the aughts, thanks in part to one of the men who made them so popular in the first place. On 2003’s “What More Can I Say,” Jay-Z rapped “I don’t wear jerseys, I’m 30 plus.” Couple that with other bubbling hip-hop fashion trends at the time like Kanye West’s preppy pink polos or Pharrell’s trucker caps, and throwbacks were suddenly passé anywhere besides a sports arena.
“Once Jay started downplaying the jerseys it’s like, ‘Oh wait. This is not cool no more,’” says Conceited. “The fly rich dudes in hip-hop is not doing jerseys. Let’s not. Then Kanye came and really switched it. That’s when it started to dwindle down.”
Mitchell & Ness in Streetwear
Despite the trend cooling off, Mitchell & Ness kept a foothold in the streetwear community in the decades that followed. Key partnerships with brands like Supreme, which kicked off in 2006, and Kith, which kickstarted in 2018, have helped the brand maintain its cool factor. One of the best examples are Just Don snapbacks with python brims and straps, which exploded in popularity in the 2010s. The longtime partnership culminated in Don C being named the creative director of Mitchell & Ness’ premium goods in February 2023.
More recent efforts include a collaboration with Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack on a capsule of collegiate gear that had students snaking lines throughout major college campuses across the country in April 2024. Willy Chavarria created a football jersey with Kendrick Lamar to commemorate his Super Bowl halftime show. Golf Wang added its signature flame print to NFL gear and Salehe Bembury brought the Knicks into the desert.
But no collaborator has been as consistent as Supreme. In November 2024, Mitchell & Ness released a collaboration with Supreme, which included lifestyle-friendly pieces like Realtree camo puffers and baby pink hoodies featuring retro logos for iconic universities like Miami and UNC. The two brands are still going strong to this day. On May 18, 206, Supreme unveiled a series of Mitchell & Ness that remixed classics like the Denver Nuggets rainbow skyline jerseys with a digi camo print, purple satin Atlanta Braves jackets, and Washington Bullets knits. It’s one of the best collabs we’ve seen from Supreme this year and looks like it was ripped straight out of the 2000s.
“Every sports fan is a consumer, but not every consumer is a sports fan,” former Mitchell & Ness CEO Eli Kumekpor told Complex in 2024. “We don’t just partner with everybody. It has to make sense. Even if you aren’t a fan, you want to cop it and be part of it.”
Mitchell & Ness Embraces a New Generation
One of the keys to relevancy with a new generation for Mitchell & Ness will be continuing to adapt to its style preferences, working alongside its favorite artists, and leaning into its nostalgia. In October 2025, they partnered with Billie Eilish on a series of NBA snapbacks resembling the styles she wore on stage throughout her world tour. In November 2025, they produced a series of “YVL” NBA jerseys with Playboi Carti. Carti’s influence provided a massive push.
For ComplexCon 2025, the brand worked alongside Nothing Grows Overnight for a special activation that allowed visitors to customize their throwback of choice with crystals, a clever way to lean into the embellished trend that has dominated streetwear in recent years.
In addition to the authentic line that painstakingly re-creates the jerseys from decades ago down to the stitching, there are also now more affordable Swingman lines that sell for under $200. In addition to the major professional men’s leagues, Mitchell & Ness also has dedicated collections for the WNBA and MLS, which have gained momentum.
One of the biggest ways that Mitchell & Ness has been able to pique the interest of the youth is rather obvious. They’ve begun to increasingly reference the more recent era of sports for their throwback jerseys. The way that an older customer may react to a Bo Jackson White Sox or Randall Cunningham Eagles jersey is the same way a younger customer may think about a Michael Vick Falcons jersey from 2004 or a Carmelo Anthony Knicks jersey from 2010. Even as it enters a new era, the company is making sure to not forget about its storied history.
“Our value proposition as a nostalgia company is to recreate the most authentically accurate version of a jersey,” said Kumekpor. “We’re not cutting corners. We’re bringing that authenticity.”
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