Memorabilia

AN INTERVIEW WITH RUSSELL HALSTED

By the late 1990s, Russell Halsted was the most prolific sports designer in the world. When a five year contract with Reebok concluded, he formed Legends Collectibles, LLC. This revolutionary company was the first in history to be licensed to sell the game used products of any professional sport. His opening salvo was the uniforms of select Major League Baseball players. Through an innate talent and years of experience in branding, he parlayed his strategy into a reality. At each turn, roadblocks were placed in his path that would discouraged a less determined man. At great expense, Russell persisted against all odds. In order to execute his plan, he had to raise a $20 million line of credit, secure licenses with MLB Properties and MLB Players Association, as well as contracts with Russell Athletic, Majestic, Rawlings, Upper Deck, Topps, ESPN and 120+ individual professional players.  

Interviewer: Thank you for taking your time to grant this interview. First, why has it taken so long to make this public?

Halsted: I have to make time to tell this story. It needs to be out in the open, so others don’t fall prey to this evil empire. As HBO Sports’ Frank DeFord told me, “You’re merely one of many that MLB has purposefully ruined, simply because of greed. If you bring something to their table that has marginal profits, they’re happy to license you and leave you to your own devices. If you bring them something that is truly unique and extremely profitable, they ruin you and steal it. It’s their long standing modus operandi.” 

There’s a clause in every licensing/franchise agreement that in effect says, “We (the licensee) reserve the right to own and operate a corporate store.” If this were a fast food company, they would do this to test new products and price points. However, their moral compass doesn’t allow them to locate their corporate store across the street from a licensor. Further, they don’t charge $1 for a hamburger, while requiring that same licensor to charge $5. Most people don’t know this, but a licensee/licensor disagreement can NOT be adjudicated. It can only be settled through arbitration. In my case, I believe MLB purposefully screwed me out of $750,000, and the best settlement I could come to, was them making Roger Staubach’s Personalities International, my LOC backer and the card companies that gave me deposits, whole. Under veiled threats of lifelong ruination, I had to agree to eat my personal loss and not discuss this for at least eight years. Well, those eight years past more than thirteen years ago. 

Today, I have to sell the ‘proof of concept’ set of jerseys and the documented story together, so someone that loves sports history can own the evidence, and turn the story into one chapter of a book and/or movie. It was and is a bumpy ride, but I need to get off at the next stop.

Interviewer: I’ll get right to the meat. By having secured the rights to game-worn MLB jerseys, I would think you should be a multi-millionaire by now. 

Halsted:  One would think. I had invented a system that was fool proof. First, it created unprecedented provenance, eliminating the possibility of fraud, which is prevalent in most sports memorabilia. My system established my ownership of each jersey, from raw fabrics to finished game worn garments, back in my possession. I ‘loaned’ MY jersey to a given team to be worn for one game. Immediately after each game, I took possession of the jersey before the player could even get into the locker room. Using off-duty sheriff’s officers in full uniform, the game used jersey was taken directly from each player under contract with my company, the moment they left the field. They were poly-bagged, sealed by the officer with his signed testimonial attached, and sent overnight FedEx to my company. This was not easy to organize for 162 games per year but it was as fool-proof as it could be. Each jersey was worth a minimum of $2,500. We had contracts with the current stars and the rookies with a potential to become stars.   

Interviewer:  Once these were in your possession, did you have to process them in any way?  

Halsted:  Very little. They were usually wet or at least damp. We would unpack them and hang them in front of industrial fans in a clean room to dry. Not one of my jerseys was ever laundered. Sweat, grass stains, blood and dirt are what makes these game-used jerseys valuable. Most people don’t realize it, but I was the first in the world to place a value on player DNA, in relevance to historic merchandise.  

I need to add something. I didn’t do all of this alone. I had a few employees that helped with the overwhelming tasks of securing these jerseys and documenting the stats. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you of the close relationship of Roger Staubach, Roz Cole and Otis Birdsong of ‘Personalities International’, a division of the Staubach Company. Throughout this whole process, they were the ones to encourage me and open the most critical doors for me. Barney Wachtel, CEO/President of Russell Athletic and Richard McWilliams, founder/CEO of Upper Deck (both mentors of mine) also helped.

Interviewer:  You had a lot of big names in the industry helping you, how did you know these people?

Halsted:  I became a sports brander, mostly through Wilt Chamberlain’s introductions. A few years out of high school, I was already doing well as a calligrapher and graphic designer. When I got the opportunity to play volleyball with Wilt on a regular basis, all I could focus on was becoming a professional player. Wilt was president of the IVA, the only professional league. Despite the fact that the IVA folded around 1979, he remained a dear friend. I was not well suited to be a top pro in another sport, so he encouraged me to use my art to stay in sports. With that, he introduced me to Joe Weider, then Arnold Schwarzenegger, and my sports branding career was officially launched.

Eventually, I worked with hundreds of amazing athletes through Apex One, Champion, Diadora, FILA, Starter, Adidas, Russell Athletic, Nike and Reebok. While designing new uniforms for the Dallas Cowboys, I got to work closely with my old friend Tony Dorsett, who introduced me to Roger Staubach. From that first meeting, Roger and I knew our work ethic and moral imperatives were aligned. It was Roger who advised me to go to MLB with my game worn program instead of football. His logic prevailed, since the NFL had 17 game seasons, NBA had 81, but MLB had 162 games per year. 

Roger also pointed out that ownership would not be an easy task to establish. Throughout the history of sports, ownership of the individual jersey was unclear. In the MLB world, Russell Athletic claimed ownership because even though they manufactured the jerseys, no one paid for them. The team claims ownership because their name is on the jerseys. The player claims ownership because their name and number is on the jerseys. MLB Players Association claims ownership because they have rights to anything representing a player’s likeness, name, or number. MLB Properties has always claimed ownership, because they own everything related to professional baseball.

Interviewer:  I’m beginning to see what you mean by roadblocks.

Halsted:  You haven’t heard anything yet. You would not believe how many people I had to strike a deal with to get this done. My first stop was Russell Athletic. I asked Barney how profitable it was to be the primary manufacturer of MLB Authentic game jerseys. His one word answer, “barely” told it all. Apparently, Russell Athletic agreed to supply game jerseys in exchange for the rights to the replica business. Unfortunately, as Barney elaborated, “Our attorneys missed the word ‘exclusive’, so after investing millions in tooling up and manufacturing their first year, MLB licensed a number of other companies to also sell replicas. There went 90% of our profit.” How much did it cost them to make the jerseys they gave to MLB each year? “$7.5 million” was the answer. This deal with Russell Athletic turned out to be the easiest of all. When I paid them at least $7.5 million, I could take possession of every MLB jersey. Now all I had to do was get licensed, so I could resell them.

Interviewer:  That’s a lot of money. Were you able to raise that much?

Halsted:  Initially, I used all my savings, remortgaged my house, leveraged all I could to personally cover the first $750,000. Once approved, our licenses with MLB Properties and the Player’s Association required us to secure a $20 million line of credit, but that only took 3-4 months.

Interviewer:  I know you had overwhelming costs, but you should be in the top 1% tax bracket by now. What happened?

Halsted: As we cleared one unbelievable gauntlet after another, MLB could see dollars slipping away from them. At first they tried to make my life hell. I would be commanded by them to be at a meeting or some event on a moment’s notice, at my expense, that only benefited them. For example, on a Friday afternoon, I was ordered to bring my Executive VP and be at a sports memorabilia convention in Hawaii on Sunday. Two days’ notice, last minute plane reservations, 8 days of hotel and meal expenses, cost me almost $40,000. Yes, I did get to spend an afternoon with Willie Mays, but my attendance there did not help my company.

MLB’s intimidation and harassment was expensive and unrelenting. After more than 2 years, the relationship was not a pleasant one. Finally, they decided to compete with me, but in the words of the retired New York Supreme Court Judge that became our eventual arbitrator, “using the most dishonest, disgusting, reprehensible, immoral and irresponsible … but not illegal methods.”

Interviewer: When someone purchased one of your jerseys, they would get the jersey, game stats, and a certificate of authenticity. Is that more than if they purchased a jersey from a player or memorabilia dealer?

Halsted: Yes. My unprecedented provenance came with credible witnesses at each stage, ultimately culminating with a uniquely numbered hologram placed on each item, which was tracked in our database. This system was never corrupted by forgers, and remains the gold standard today. The head of the Chicago field office of the FBI, in charge of sports memorabilia fraud in America said it best. He and I were keynote speakers at the Hawaiian conference. After describing their ‘Operation Bullpen’ in minute detail, he closed by telling the huge room full of memorabilia dealers the following: “If you want to know how memorabilia should be done, please pay close attention to the next speaker.”
With that, he introduced me.