About CI Sport

Established in 1990, CI Sport has become a nationally recognized company supplying collegiate and corporate apparel. In the highly competitive business of decorated apparel, CI Sport has gained market share with our 24 piece minimums, innovative designs and fast turnaround times.

CI Sport partners with 800 College bookstores spanning from coast to coast. Being registered with over 150 collegiate licenses, CI Sport is very diversified in its ability to produce much sought-after logos. Our Marketing and Development team continually raises the bar of expectations with cutting edge designs and trendy fashion garments.

Our expanded production facility is state-of-the-art, allowing CI Sport to remain a top producer of custom decorated apparel – no job is too big or too small. If you want the personal attention of a hometown company that is capable of big business, CI Sport is the place for you.




CI Sport: Two Decades of Excellence
A Comprehensive Company History

Part I: Prehistory

CI Sport’s beginnings occurred in Fargo, North Dakota, during the late 1980’s. CI Sport was conceived as a start-up screenprint company by two entrepreneurs, Randy Thorson and Warren Ackley, who were involved in the hospitality industry. Having a successful chain of restaurants and nightclubs all over the Midwest, Thorson and Ackley needed to order a large amount of apparel to outfit their ever growing legion of employees, and for also retail sale. The company that provided this apparel was called Dakota Screen Arts (DSA) based out of Bismarck, North Dakota.

One of the partners at DSA took a keen interest to the large amount of business that was being done with his company by Thorson and Ackley. Having known them for many years, he approached them regarding creating their own screenprint company in Fargo, with the overriding theory that the bar and restaurant business could alone sustain the profitability of a small screenprint company. With the general consensus that this would be a risk worth taking, Creative Imprintz, later to become CI Sport, was born.

Part II: The Early Years

Creative Imprintz opened its doors in September of 1990 in a small office space above the Old Broadway Bar and Restaurant, owned by the two entrepreneurs, located at the corner of NP Avenue and Broadway in Fargo. The beginning look of Creative Imprintz was very humble compared to the large size that the company has grown to today. Initially, the only piece of equipment used by the company was a six-color, manually operated screen printing press run by two production people. Creative Imprintz soon hired a talented Fargo art designer, along with a sales person, both of which came to the company with an extensive amount of business contacts throughout the region.

Creative Imprintz grew steadily in its infancy, supplying apparel to businesses and organizations all over Eastern North Dakota and Northwest Minnesota. The continued growth of the restaurants and nightclubs fueled the success of Creative Imprintz as well. Many large corporate businesses were also essential partners to CI during this time.

Creative Imprintz expanded its offerings to its customers with the purchase of their first 12-color automatic screen press and a six-head embroidery machine in 1992. Throughout 1991 and 1992, Creative Imprintz was able to hire more staff, including new sales representatives with contacts in the high school and college team markets. Soon CI began building a foundation in the athletic, collegiate, and retail markets that would build CI Sport to the successful company that it is today.

Part III: The Beginning of Retail Marketing

CI Sport has been fortunate to have a long standing relationship with Scheels All Sports, who are also based out of Fargo, North Dakota. In pursuing the collegiate garment field, Creative Imprintz was the first company to have their collegiate product sold at Scheels, beginning in the fall of 1992. At this time, Scheels was primarily a hardware/sporting goods store that was experimenting with the collegiate market. Today Scheels has large collegiate clothing sections in each of their 23 stores across the nation. CI is very proud of the business relationship that has been built over the years with Scheels All Sports.

Seeing that the collegiate market was a viable part of the screenprint and embroidery business, Creative Imprintz began pursuing the college bookstore market. In 1993 the very first college to order from Creative Imprintz new retail line was obtained. Soon after, many other large colleges and universities in the area became business partners as well.

Creative Imprintz soon found the need to hire more staff and buy more equipment to keep up with the growing demand of its services. A marketing department was also formed to provide the ever-growing customer base with the most up-to-date product and design available. In late 1995, Creative Imprintz moved into a larger facility just down the block to accommodate this growth. Creative Imprintz soon began to market itself outside of the Tri-State area. Before long sales reps were covering bookstores not just in the Dakotas and Minnesota but also Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin. By the late 90’s, Creative Imprintz had gone from a five person operation to a large corporation, employing well over 50 people.

Part IV: A Time of Change

By the time of its ten year anniversary in 2000, CI Sport was growing steadily in both the retail and corporate markets. At this time, a new management team was brought in to take CI to the next level. The decision was soon made to change the company’s name to “CI Apparel” to better reflect the broad spectrum of services that CI offered to its clients.

In the early 2000’s, bookstores in Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Michigan, Kansas, and Indiana began coming into the CI Apparel fold. CI Apparel added new equipment and inventory space to keep up with the progress they were making in the retail market. CI Apparel was again rapidly outgrowing its new location, and in 2003 CI Apparel, moved into its current location to allow for more growth.

A seminal moment in CI history came in 2003 when the company first bought booth space at the CAMEX show, which was held in St. Louis that year. CAMEX is the largest gathering of college bookstores and collegiate clothing retailers in the country. Even though CI Apparel had a small presence at this massive convention, buyers from large and small bookstores alike were drawn to CI’s low minimums, top quality garments, and cutting edge designs. In the span of three days presence at CAMEX, CI Apparel went from being a regional company to having customers from coast to coast. In subsequent years, CI’s display booth at CAMEX has grown from being only ten feet wide to being one of the largest displays at the show, with its current booth measuring 40’ by 40’.

Part V: A Nationwide Company

With CI’s new found success at CAMEX, the need was apparent to add more sales staff in order to cover the increased territory of the company. In addition, CI invested additional dollars by adding another automatic screen print press, investing in state of the art WILCOM digitizing software, and increasing embroidery machine capacity to over 100 heads.

To reflect the new nationwide reach of CI Apparel, the name of the company was changed to “CI Sport” in 2007. While CI still does a lot of business in the corporate apparel field, the name “CI Sport” better reflects the retail apparel feel of CI’s products. CI Sport also started a new “logo development” division under the direction of our in-house art director, who works closely with collegiate licensing companies to create new and up-to-date logos for the universities.

Today CI Sport does business from coast to coast, servicing over 800 bookstores and retail outlets, along with having countless corporation clients. CI Sport is proud to be the largest manufacturer in a private sector renaissance zone in the state of North Dakota. CI Sport is one of only four companies in the country to have two 80 foot “Laser Bridge” machines, which will take CI’s all ready formidable decoration capabilities to the next level and beyond. CI Sport has transformed over the years from a small company a company that provides employment for over 100 people, retaining the reputation it has always had for quality customer service, unique designs, low minimums, top quality garments, and quick turn around times.